LETTERS  TO  A 
SALMON  FISHEKS 

SONS 

<BY 

A.H.CHAYTOR 


LETTERS  TO 
A   SALMON  FISHER'S  SONS 


LETTERS   TO 
A    SALMON    FISHER'S 

SONS 


BY    A.     H.     GHAYTOR 


WITH    DIAGRAMS    AND    ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
1910 


TO 

DREWETT  ORMONDE  DREWETT 
A  JUST  MAN  AND  A  GREAT  SALMON   FISHER 

NOW   IN  THE  LAND  OF  SILENCE 
IN    MEMORY   OF   UNNUMBERED    KINDNESSES 

.   .   .  feriuntque  summos  fulgura  monies 


a  2 


2088276 


PREFACE 

TO   MY  BOYS 

MY  DEAR  SONS,  DREWETT  AND  KIT, 

If  in  these  matter-of-fact  days  there  be  any 
stars  that  still  preside  over  our  destinies,  then 
you  and  I,  my  boys,  must,  I  think,  have  been 
born  under  the  sign  Pisces,  '  the  fish  with  glitter- 
ing scales  ' — unless,  indeed,  Aquarius,  the  water- 
carrier,  is  but  the  bearer  of  a  celestial  bait-can 
and  intent  upon  his  neighbouring  fishes.  And  of 
you  two,  who  each  began  your  fishing  before  your 
seventh  year  was  out,  I  have  good  hope  of  making 
salmon  fishers,  especially  since  that  day  when  you, 
Drewett,  were  so  fortunate  as  to  hook  and,  with 
much  luck  and  with  some  little  help,  to  land  your 
first  grilse — a  fish  of  4^  Ibs. — when  worming  for 
dace  that  very  first  season.  One  of  you,  indeed, 
began  the  taking  of  fish  at  the  age  of  three  by 
stealing,  much  to  the  joy  of  the  proprietor,  and  to 
the  detriment  of  your  clothing,  a  small  sea-trout 
from  a  fishmonger's  slab,  over  which  you,  standing 
on  tiptoe,  were  at  that  time  barely  able  to  peep. 

I  have  written  these  letters  for  you  in  the  hope 

vii 


Vlll 


PREFACE 


that  they  may  tell  you  all  that  I  can  teach  you 
about  fishing.  If  they  can  teach  you  how  to  do 
it,  I  know  well  that  you  will  like  it.  And  for  you 
two  I  need  say  nothing  about  myself,  but  as  I 
begin  to  hope  that  these  letters  which  I  have 
written  may  help  or  amuse  others,  I  must  say 
something  of  my  own  fishing. 

In  the  library  of  one  enthusiastic  angler — as 
Walton  says — '  now  with  God,  a  noted  fisher 
both  for  Trout  and  Salmon/  there  were  no  less  than 
two  thousand  seven  hundred  books  upon  fishing. 
So,  you  see,  when  any  one  is  found  with  pen  in 
hand  writing  a  book  upon  angling  he  may  well 
be  called  upon,  as  the  lawyers  are  when  they 
join  their  circuits,  to  '  state  his  pretensions/ 
And  if  it  were  only  to  avoid  the  appearance  of 
teaching  those  who  exceed  himself  in  experi- 
ence and  in  skill  he  would  probably  wish  to 
do  so. 

My  own  first  experience  of  angling  came  very 
near  to  being  also  my  last.  As  a  very  little  boy  I 
was  fishing  in  the  sea  from  a  wooden  landing-stage, 
and  in  trying  to  make  a  few  feet  of  thread  with  a 
bent  pin  at  the  end  of  it  reach  out  to  some  tiny 
prize,  I  tumbled  in  and  was  at  once  swept  out  by 
the  tide.  Luckily  for  me  I  had  a  brother,  to  call 
for  help,  and  a  mother — your  grandmother — both 
able  and  willing,  fully  dressed  as  she  was,  to  swim 


PREFACE  ix 

for  me  and  to  support  me,  although  I  was  un- 
conscious, until  we  were  both  rescued.  Since 
then,  though  I  have  tried  a  great  variety  of 
sport,  both  in  this  country  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  world,  fishing  has  always  had  a  very 
large  share  of  my  affection,  and  of  my  holidays. 
Indeed,  I  was  almost,  as  they  say  in  the  North, 
'  tied  '  to  like  it,  for  I  learnt  it  partly  from  a 
grandfather  who  caught  his  first  salmon  at  fifteen 
and  his  last  at  eighty-four,  and  still  more  from 
a  cousin — more  than  a  father  to  me — who  had 
fished  skilfully  from  his  earliest  boyhood,  and 
who  read  all  these  pages  in  print,  although — 
almost  yesterday  it  was — he  has  since  been  called 
away  to  take  his  seat  by  that  grim  ferryman  who 
awaits  us  all. 

Of  coarse  fish  I  have  no  experience,  and  though 
I  have  fished  for  trout  in  many  waters  in  this 
country,  from  the  Exe  and  the  Itchen  up  to  the 
streams  and  lochs  of  Sutherland,  and  also  in 
Norway  and  in  New  Zealand,  yet  it  is  mainly  as 
a  salmon  fisher  that  I  have  loved  to  fish,  and  a  great 
part  of  my  salmon  fishing  has  been  upon  a  single 
river.  I  have  never  fished  any  of  the  extraordin- 
arily good  rivers  either  here  or  in  Norway.  How 
amazingly  good  some  salmon  waters  can  be,  and 
how  abundantly  one  may  catch  salmon  in  them, 
may,  perhaps,  be  realised  from  the  following  little 


x  PREFACE 

correspondence  in  the  Field  newspaper  during  the 
month  of  February  1909.  On  February  the  20th 
a  man  writes  to  say  that  a  lady,  during  the  season 
lately  over,  has  caught  no  less  than  seventy-five 
salmon  to  her  own  rod,  and  he  asks  is  this  not 
a  '  record  ' — that  curse  of  true  sport.  To  him  on 
February  the  27th  replies  a  proud  husband  ;  the 
partner  of  his  joys  has  beaten  this  '  record/  and 
in  six  weeks  of  fishing  has  slaughtered  no  less 
than  104  salmon  of  the  average  weight  of  19  Ibs. 
But  both  these  heroines  have  to  yield  the  palm 
to  a  lady  whose  take  for  one  season,  tersely  re- 
corded by  her  husband,  is  the  following  : — Spring 
55,  summer  25,  autumn  53,  total  133  salmon, 
besides  750  sea-trout. 

If  to  those  whose  lines  are  cast  in  such  pleasant 
places  my  takes  seem  rather  small,  yet  they 
represented  very  reasonable  success  upon  the 
waters  on  which  they  were  in  fact  obtained. 
Nor  have  they  been  left  to  the  treachery  of 
memory,  for  they  were  entered  from  day  to  day  in 
Fishing  Books  kept  with  an  almost  religious  care, 
and  recording,  with  many  details,  every  fish  taken 
upon  the  water.  So  that  if  I  am  to  be  accused  of 
lying,  as  commonly  happens  to  the  fisherman,  it 
must  be  not  merely  the  proverbial  exaggeration 
of  recollection,  but  deliberate,  perverse,  and 
pestilent. 


PREFACE  xi 

Amongst  people  who  have  fished  a  great  deal 
the  following  items  together  give  a  rough  idea  of 
the  kind  of  experience  that  any  salmon  fisher 
has  had.  During  upwards  of  twenty  years  of 
salmon  fishing — in  holidays  only — my  three  best 
seasons  have  yielded  me  seventy-eight,  seventy- 
three,  and  sixty-eight  salmon,  my  best  spring 
day  five  salmon,  and  my  best  autumn  day  nine 
salmon  and  two  bull-trout,  whilst  my  heaviest 
fish  has  been  40^  Ibs. 

As  I  undertake  to  teach  you,  my  boys,  I  must, 
of  course,  set  out  very  plainly  my  own  opinion 
about  theories  held  by  many  fine  fishers,  and 
criticise  many  things  that  they,  perhaps,  do.  They 
may  now  be  able  to  assure  themselves  that  their 
experience  is  greater  than  mine  ;  and  in  any  case, 
being  anglers,  I  have  little  fear  of  annoying  them, 
for  they  will  be  still  quite  sure  that  they  are 
altogether  right.  But  if  I  can  hand  on  to  you  some 
of  the  skilful  teaching  and  some  of  the  '  wrinkles  ' 
that  have  been  always  freely  given  to  me  by 
almost  every  good  fisher  that  I  have  ever  met — 
some  of  whom,  I  hope,  may  recognise  their  teaching 
here — I  shall  be  more  than  repaid  for  the  trouble 
of  this  little  book.  If  from  it  you  learn  only  a  few 
of  these  things  that  I  want  you  to  know,  how  to 
tie  your  salmon  gut  with  the  knot  that  I  have 
explained  for  you  at  page  187,  how  to  save  your 


xii  PREFACE 

flies  on  windy  days  by  dressing  them  on  a  loop  of 
soft  fiddle-string  (p.  167),  how  to  recover  your  form 
at  once  when  your  casting  is  not  satisfying  you 
(p.  15),  and  how  to  hold  your  rod  in  a  less  strained 
and  less  tiring  attitude  than  is  commonly  done  by 
the  salmon  fisher  (p.  24), — if  you  learn  only  those 
four  things  from  these  letters,  I  fancy  that  you  will 
find  yourselves  content. 

Many  a  time  in  reading  books  upon  salmon 
fishing  I  have  wished  that  their  skilful  writers 
would  tell  one  a  little  more  about  the  fish  that 
they  have  caught — about  the  fights  that  they 
made  for  their  liberty,  their  success  or  failure, 
and  the  angler's  view  of  their  desperate  battles. 
When  an  author  will  write  so  for  me  I  stand 
beside  him  in  the  river,  my  fingers  feel  the  line, 
the  reel  screams  in  my  ears,  some  fish  of  mine, 
lost  or  long  dead,  flings  himself  out  with  theirs 
or  dashes  down  over  the  foaming  rapids  and  our 
fish  are  lost  together.  When  the  fish  is  landed 
my  interest  ends,  but  if  the  fish  is  lost  I  know 
that  angler's  mind.  My  rod  flies  up  with  his, 
then  comes  a  moment's  doubt,  a  hope  that  the 
fish  may  only  have  turned,  and  in  spite  of  all  may 
still  be  on,  then  the  sickening  certainty  that  he 
has  gone.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  strange 
that  such  trivial  details  can  be  interesting  even 
to  another  fisherman — but  they  are  so,  and  I 


PREFACE  xiii 

suppose  that  it  is  only  another  proof  of  the 
extraordinary  fascination  that  salmon  fishing  has 
for  us. 

Of  course,  many  times — though  your  books  will 
hardly  tell  you  this — the  playing  of  a  salmon  is 
as  dull  and  uneventful  as  a  thing  can  be.  If  that 
dulness  were  not  varied,  and  pretty  often,  by  the 
most  brilliant  contrasts,  we  should  soon  despise 
salmon  fishing  and  abandon  it  altogether.  But 
amongst  every  few  fish  comes  one  whose  pluck 
and  speed  and  dash  keep  your  hands  trem- 
bling the  whole  time  that  you  are  playing  him, 
and  wipe  out  all  memory  of  his  less  active 
fellows. 

Well,  I  have  tried  to  give  you  a  good  many 
of  such  fishing  days,  and  the  actual  details  of 
the  fights  I  had.  In  doing  this  it  is  useless  to 
search  back  into  one's  memory,  even  aided  by 
the  best  fishing  records.  You  must,  as  I  think, 
and  have  done,  take  a  day  that  is  still  to-day  or 
only  yesterday  and  give  the  actual  events  from 
a  fresh  and  precise  recollection  of  them.  If  you 
find  it  dull  to  read  these  detailed  accounts  of  play- 
ing fish,  you  must  skip  them,  but  I  hope  that  when 
you  can  fish  you  will  see  something  out  of  your 
own  memory  in  them  because  you  yourselves  are 
salmon  fishers  and  have  dreamed  dreams. 

Not  egotism,  but  the  direct  simplicity  of  using 


xiv      .  PREFACE 

the  first  and  second  person  in  speaking  of  scenes 
at  which  one  has  been  present,  and  in  giving  any 
instruction,  caused  me  to  retain  the  form  of  letters 
directly  to  you. 

I  have  put  in  two  photographs  of  salmon  and 
some  others  of  typical  salmon  pools.  The  latter 
were  all  taken  by  my  friend  Bruce  Williamson,  to 
whom  I  am  greatly  indebted  for  them.  I  have 
to  thank  certain  of  my  friends  for  reading  several 
of  these  letters  and  helping  me  to  knock  out  some 
fustian  from  what  I  had  written.  I  dare  say  that 
there  is  much  fustian  left.  I  fear  it  is  so.  It  is 
rather  easy  to  be  absurd  when  the  very  thought 
of  a  rod  and  a  salmon  pool  can  make  one  feel  like 
a  schoolboy  going  home  for  the  holidays. 

Your  affectionate  father, 

A.  H.  C. 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY,        .....  I 

CHAP. 

I.    THE   ROD,    LINE,    AND   GUT,  ...  6 

II.    ON  CASTING  THE  FLY.       WHERE  TO    CAST.       MOVING 

BETWEEN   CASTS,  .  .  .  .12 

III.  HOW  TO   FISH,  .  .  .  .  .27 

IV.  ON   FLIES,    ...  34 
V.    STRIKING   THE   FISH,  .            .                 .                 .                 .40 

VI.    ON   PLAYING   A   SALMON,      .  .  .46 

VII.    THE   SENSE   OF   PAIN    IN    FISH,          .  .  55 

VIII.    SPRING    FISHING,      .  63 

ODE   TO    A    SALMON    RIVER,  .  .  .76 

IX.   A   WEEK-END   IN   OCTOBER,  .  .  77 

X.    MINNOW    FISHING,  .  .  .  .  .88 

XI.    WORMING,    .  .  .  .  .  .105 

XII.    ONE   OF   OUR    BEST    DAYS,    .  .  .  .114 

XIII.  ON   OTTERS   AND   OTHER   POACHERS,  .  .126 

XIV.  SOME   MORE   POACHERS,        .  .  .  -137 
XV.    THE   LAST   DAY    OF   A   SEASON,  .  .  .145 

XVI.    MY   BEST    FISH,  .  .  .  .  .150 

XVII.    WHEN   AND   WHERE   TO    EXPECT   SALMON,    .  .158 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

XVIII.    HINTS   ON    FLY   TYING,       .  1 66 

XIX.    KNOTS,       .  .177 

XX.    OF   WADING,    WADERS,    AND   CLOTHING,      .  .192 

XXI.    TACKLE   AND   ACCESSORIES,               .  .          2OI 

XXII.   ON   SPAWNING   SALMON,    .  ,.         208 

xxni.  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON — continued,  .       220 

XXIV.    TALES   OF   A   GREAT-GRANDFATHER,  .          229 

XXV.    NATURAL    HISTORY    AND    OTHER    POINTS,  .  .          253 

XXVI.    THE    OLD    SALMON    ACTS,  .  .263 

XXVII.    ON    TAKING    A    FISHING,     .  .          273 

XXVIII.    A    POSTSCRIPT,        .  .                  .          278 

XXIX.    SOME   BOOKS    ON    FISHING,  .         282 

INDEX,       .                                                   .  .         286 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

THE  THROAT  OF  A  POOL,     .             .  .        facing  page       6 

A    SALMON    POOL,        .  „                 34 

A   HIGHLAND   RIVER,  .,                 76 

A    25    LBS.    FISH    ON   A    SPINNING    ROD,  „                 92 

SEPTEMBER    7TH,    1908,           .  ,,122 

A   FORTY-POUNDER,.  ,,               156 

AN    ENGLISH    RIVER,                                   .  .                      „               228 

A   ROCKY   STREAM    IN    SCOTLAND,       .  .                      „               272 


LETTERS 

TO 

A  SALMON  FISHER'S  SONS 

AN    INTRODUCTORY   ESSAY 
ON  FISHING 

As  Bacon  said,  '  God  Almighty  first  planted  a 
garden,  and  sure  it  is  the  purest  of  all  humane 
pleasures.'  The  fisher  constantly  is  as  it  were  in 
a  wild  garden,  and  this  very  pleasure  to  be  found 
in  the  beauty  around  him  he  has  made  a  part  of 
his. sport  itself.  It  has  a  spirit :  it  is  not  merely 
the  sport  of  taking  fish. 

This  was  not  always  so,  because  it  was  not  always 
realised,  and  even  to  this  day  in  many  countries 
angling  is  thought  of  merely  as  a  humble  drudgery. 
But  in  England,  since  the  time  of  Walton,  the 
first  thought  of  your  true  fisher  is  of  the  fresh  air, 
the  rushing  water  in  his  ears,  the  cool  evenings, 
the  glowing  sunsets,  the  flowers  and  trees,  the 
birds,  and  all  the  river-loving  things  in  furs  or 
feathers.  Small  voices  speak  to  him  :  the  cheerful 
'  chit-chit '  of  the  water  ouzel,  the  droning  of 
bees  in  the  heather,  the  distant  cry  of  curlew 
— that  sweet  quavering  call  which  finds  some 
unfailing  echo  in  the  soul  of  every  man  that 

A 


4  AN  INTRODUCTORY  ESSAY 

If  he  is  salmon  fishing,  to  see  him,  with  that  slow 
recovery  and  easy  action  that  lays  the  fly  at  the 
full  stretch,  even  against  a  strong  and  gusty  wind, 
casting  a  long,  clean  line  and  fishing  every  pool 
like  a  master  of  his  craft. 

Every  cast  well  done  is  a  separate  and  distinct 
effort  with  a  distinct  pleasure  in  its  success. 
Every  salmon  fisher  knows  a  few  difficult  or  risky 
casts  that  delight  him  every  time  that  he  makes 
them  neatly.  Salmon  love  to  lie  against  stakes 
or  weiring  or  the  points  of  jetties,  and  such  places 
often  require  the  most  dexterous  casting.  And 
even  the  best  salmon  fisher  varies  in  the  nicety 
of  his  throw.  On  one  day  a  happy  judgment 
seems  to  pitch  the  fly  almost  within  an  inch  or 
two  of  every  danger ;  on  another  his  gayest  fly 
remains  to  ornament  some  snag  or  stake.  The 
boldest  cast  goes  right ;  the  slightest  hesitation 
hits  the  very  danger  that  it  feared. 

But  I  wander  from  the  point,  which  is  that  the 
act  of  fishing  is  itself  a  pleasure,  and  one  not  easy 
to  explain  except  to  those  to  whom  it  needs  no 
explanation.  Each  several  cast  is  an  act  of  no 
little  skill,  with  many  stages  between  complete 
success  and  total  failure  ;  and  each  cast  well  made 
in  good  water  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  vivid 
hope  of  that  surging  swirl  upon  the  water,  or  that 
heavy  unseen  pull,  which  marks  the  supreme 
moment  of  salmon  fishing. 

Of  the  pleasure  of  success  in  fishing  I  need  say 
nothing.  We  all  know  it ;  and  we  all  have  felt 


THE  FIRST  SALMON  5 

it.  Why  do  we  look  back  upon  that  first  quiver- 
ing salmon  and  recall  every  detail  of  the  scene  ? 
Many  triumphs  of  every  kind  we  can  forget,  but 
never  that  one.  You  may  have  a  wife  than  whom 
no  man  has  a  dearer ;  you  may  have  triumphed  in 
endless  ways  ;  but  not  wedding  days,  nor  school- 
boy triumphs,  nor  student  hopes  fulfilled,  nor 
snowy  peaks,  nor  the  hunter's  fiercer  joy  will  have 
so  many  cells  in  the  honeycomb  of  memory  as  your 
first  spring  salmon.  The  eleventh  of  March 
seldom  finds  me  near  a  river  without  my  seeing 
that  day  well  over  twenty  years  ago  when,  as  a 
boy,  I  stepped  into  the  water  and  lifted  out  by 
the  tail  my  first  salmon — a  little  fish,  as  I  know 
now,  of  9J-  Ibs.,  but  then  I  thought  it  the  most 
beautiful  fish  that  ever  was  seen. 

But  even  success  has  its  limits ;  the  fish  is 
caught,  the  thing  is  done.  It  is  our  lost  fish  that 
I  believe  stay  longest  in  our  memory,  and  seize 
upon  our  thoughts  whenever  we  look  back  to 
fishing  days.  The  most  gallant  fish  when  eaten 
is  forgotten,  but  the  fish  that,  after  a  mad,  glorious 
battle,  has  beaten  us  and  left  us  quivering  with 
excitement  and  vexation,  is  hooked  and  lost  again 
in  many  a  year  to  come. 


A2 


THE  ROD,  LINE,  AND  GUT 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — '  A  large  demonstration  of 
words  '  is  not  the  best  way  of  teaching  salmon 
fishing.  Actual  fishing  in  the  company  of  a  good 
salmon  fisher  is  the  best  way,  and,  indeed,  it  is 
the  only  really  good  way;  but  I  have  myself 
found  a  great  deal  of  help  in  reading  books  on 
fishing,  and  a  great  deal  of  pleasure,  more  especially 
when  fish  have  been  taking  badly,  in  trying  the 
various  ways  in  which  their  authors  advise  you  to 
proceed.  From  a  book  you  cannot  learn  the  whole 
art  of  salmon  fishing,  but  you  can  learn  to  avoid 
many  disastrous  mistakes,  and  you  can  learn 
endless  '  wrinkles '  which  make  your  fishing 
more  finished  and  much  more  effectual  than 
before. 

We  most  of  us  begin  as  trout  fishers,  and  after 
a  season  or  two  of  salmon  fishing  we  feel  that  we 
know  all  about  it,  and  that  there  is  really  not  much 
to  be  learnt  by  any  decent  trout  fisher.  But  a 
larger  experience  brings  doubts.  We  find  that  in 
low  waters  and  in  the  worst  conditions  some  few 
men  can  regularly  catch  fish,  whilst  everybody 
else  on  the  river  is  doing  nothing.  When  salmon 
are  taking  freely  almost  any  one  who  can  throw 


SKILL  IN  FISHING  7 

a  fly  may  catch  a  salmon,  but  at  other  times  the 
difference  between  a  really  good  and  a  merely 
ordinary  fisher  is  just  as  great  in  salmon  fishing 
as  it  is  in  trouting,  or  as  it  is  between  the  good  and 
the  ordinary  performer  in  every  other  sport.  In 
really  bad  conditions  the  good  fisher  alone  will 
catch  fish  and  the  other  will  consistently  catch 
nothing.  Moreover,  I  am  convinced  that  your 
really  skilful  salmon  fisher  is  a  much  rarer  bird 
than  the  really  good  trout  fisher.  It  may  be  that 
the  opportunities  of  gaining  great  experience  of 
salmon  fishing  are  not  so  common,  and  perhaps 
fall  too  often  to  somewhat  luxurious  and  idle 
sportsmen  who  leave  the  whole  direction  in  the 
hands  of  the  gillie  or  keeper,  whilst  the  good 
trout  fisher  does  his  own  thinking,  and  becomes  a 
far  better  performer.  But  certainly,  whatever  be 
the  reason,  great  skill  is  not  so  common  in  salmon 
fishing. 

Most  books  on  fishing  begin  with  a  chapter  on 
the  natural  history  of  the  salmon  and  of  his 
cousins  the  bull-trout  and  the  sea-trout.  Next 
they  go  on  to  deal  at  very  great  length  with  the 
rods  and  reels  and  flies,  and  the  tackle  of  every 
sort,  with  which  you  may  hope  to  catch  him. 
As  to  the  life-history  of  the  salmon,  our  knowledge 
of  it,  thanks  to  systematic  marking  of  fish,  is  only 
just  now  beginning  to  be  worth  anything  at  all; 
but  this  knowledge  has  hardly  any  bearing  upon 
the  actual  catching  of  the  fish  with  rod  and  line, 
and  I  shall  keep  for  a  later  letter  what  little  I  have 


8  THE  ROD,  LINE,  AND  GUT 

to  say  about  the  habits  and  food  of  the  fish  and 
about  its  deadly  enemies  at  every  stage  of  its 
life. 

I  shall  deal  also  with  rods  and  tackle  in  a 
separate  letter.  As  to  the  tackle  I  will  here  only 
say  this  :  as  the  prize  is  large,  powerful,  and 
greatly  valued,  so  the  tackle  should  in  every  detail 
be  sound  and  strong  and  the  best  of  its  kind.  I 
do  not  mean  that  the  gut,  for  instance,  should  be 
of  the  stoutest,  nor  that  the  rod  or  reel  need  be 
very  costly.  Far  from  it.  Many  people  use  gut 
that  is  far  too  thick ;  so  thick  that  it  spoils  the 
working  of  any  small  fly,  and  actually  helps  to 
prevent  its  users  from  ever  hooking  the  fish 
that  they  have  provided  such  strength  to 
hold. 

So  also  with  flies.  Many  of  the  costly  shop  flies 
are  so  overloaded  with  feathers  that  when  in  the 
water  they  are  only  a  sodden  lump,  and  all  life 
and  movement  is  destroyed.  These  flies  only  begin 
to  kill  fish  when  they  get  old  and  knocked  to  bits 
with  use.  Their  confiding  owner,  too,  usually  has 
a  great  tin  box,  or  else  a  giant  book,  full  of  similar 
glories  ;  and  he  spends  a  large  part  of  his  time, 
when  he  ought  to  be  fishing,  in  inspecting  these 
flies  in  order  to  decide  which  he  shall  use 
next,  and  then  in  tying  it  on  in  place  of  the 
one  which  he  had  last  preferred.  This  ex- 
travagance in  gut  and  flies,  just  as  in  rods  or 
reels,  does  not  help  you  one  bit.  Any  sound  rod, 
whether  of  greenheart  or  of  cane,  wiD  do  well ; 


LINES,  THICK  AND  THIN  9 

but  it  ought  not  to  be  so  long  or  so  heavy  as  to 
overtax  your  strength  in  any  way.  Personally  I 
generally  use  rods  of  split  cane  with  steel  centres, 
and  I  do  that  because  they  have  been  given  to 
me  ;  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  steel 
centre,  though  ensuring  its  long  life,  does  not 
make  the  rod  so  quick  and  lively  or  so  '  sweet ' 
to  fish  with  as  is  a  simple  split  cane  rod  by  an 
equally  good  maker.  For  my  part  I  think  that 
there  is  only  one  satisfactory  maker  of  such  rods, 
but  it  is  not  my  business  to  advertise  him. 

So  with  reels.  Any  sound  reel  will  do,  but  I 
prefer  to  have  a  reel  as  small  as  possible — say 
four  inches,  or  even  three  and  a  half  inches,  across 
the  whole  side — and  to  get  the  right  length  of 
line  by  using  very  thin  and  strong  undressed 
'  backing  '  of  plaited  silk  or  hemp.  If  you  have, 
as  for  years  I  had,  only  one  rod — let  us  say  a 
strong  rod  of  seventeen  feet,  for  that  is  about 
the  size  most  generally  useful — it  is  well  worth 
while  to  have  both  a  heavy  and  a  light  line  for  it. 
When  the  water  is  low,  or  when  the  weather  is 
not  very  windy,  the  lighter  line  is  the  means  of 
fishing  with  much  less  effort  and  very  much  more 
lightly  and  more  pleasantly  than  you  could  do 
with  the  heavier  one.  In  very  windy  weather  the 
heavy  line  will  fish  better  and  will  save  you  endless 
vexation  and  effort.  Even  if  one  keeps  only  a 
single  reel  to  serve  for  both  of  these  lines,  the 
trouble  of  tying  on  a  different  line  is  very  small, 
and  changes  need  not  usually  be  frequent,  as  one 


io  THE  ROD,  LINE,  AND  GUT 

fishes  with  the  lighter  line  always  except  in  big 
waters  or  blustering  winds.  You  keep  each  line 
whipped  on  to  its  own  60  to  100  yards  of  backing, 
and  you  reel  off  the  whole  together  and  then  tie 
on  the  other  line  to  the  core  or  drum  of  the 
empty  reel. 

Although  it  will  be  rather  costly,  yet  it  is  true 
economy  to  buy  a  really  good  line,  and  then  to 
keep  it  sound  by  seeing  that  it  is  invariably  put 
out  and  dried  after  use,  even  though  you  intend 
to  fish  the  next  day.  For  the  heavier  line  I  do 
not  think  it  by  any  means  necessary  that  it  should 
be  tapered,  though  it  is  pleasanter  so  ;  but  the 
lighter  one  should  be  the  softest  and  the  most 
pliable  double-tapered  line  that  you  can  get. 

As  to  gut,  it  need  not  be  at  all  expensive  if  you 
make  up  your  own  casts  ;  which  is  one  of  the 
simplest  things  in  the  world,  almost  as  easy  as 
falling  off  the  proverbial  log,  as  soon  as  you  know 
the  proper  knot  to  use  for  strong  gut.1  Yet  at  the 
present  time  not  one  angler  in  fifty  knows  how  to 
tie  that  knot,  and  it  is  used  only  by  one  or  two 
fishing-tackle  makers,  who  jealously  keep  the 
secret.  For  the  strongest  fish  you  may  use  quite 
thin  gut  if  you  in  the  first  place  select  the  gut  and 
tie  it  properly,  and  then  are  always  alert  to  watch 
it  and  to  remove  any  weakened  strand,  and  to 
re- tie  any  injured  or  '  necked '  knot.  The  first 
sign  of  weakening  may  be  seen  by  taking  the  cast 
by  short  lengths  in  both  hands  and  bending  it  at 

1  See  Chap.  xix.  for  this  knot. 


GUT  ii 

each  knot,  when  any  unsound  or  necked  strand 
will  at  once  show  itself  by  a  sharp  uneven  bend 
usually  close  to  the  knot.  This  is  a  much  more 
searching  test  than  a  mere  pull  at  the  gut  cast ; 
and  a  cast  that  when  soaked  will  stand  a  moderate, 
but  firm,  pull,  and  will  show  no  weakness  when 
bent  at  every  knot,  as  I  have  just  described,  is 
quite  sound  and  fit  to  stand  the  strain  of  any 
fish. 

No  more  about  tackle  at  present.     Let  us  begin 
straightway  to  fish. 

Yours, 

A.  H.  C. 


II 

ON   CASTING  THE  FLY 

MY  DEAR  SONS, — Every  one  can  tell  you  that  you 
cast  a  fly  by  using  a  rod  in  the  same  manner  as 
you  would  a  whip.  That  is  correct  enough,  but 
when  first  you  begin  to  put  that  advice  into 
practice  you  will  find  it  vague  and  unsatisfying 
to  the  last  degree.  Then  you  find  that  the  only 
thing  that  you  do  not  do  with  the  fly  is  to  send 
it  out  as  you  wish.  You  may  know  quite  well 
how  to  handle  a  whip,  but  the  strong  salmon  rod 
seems  quite  incapable  of  any  similar  movements, 
and  the  line  persists  in  splashing  into  the  water 
'  all  in  a  heap/  whilst  the  gut  ties  itself  into 
tangled  knots.  The  fact  is  that  the  easy  whip-like 
motion  is  only  to  be  had  in  perfection  with  a  long 
line,  and  the  beginner,  for  obvious  reasons,  has 
not  started  with  a  long  line. 

The  vital  fault  with  most  beginners  is  that  they 
fail  to  bend  the  rod  ;  they  use  it  not  as  a  whip 
but  as  if  it  were  a  stiff  pole.  In  their  effort  to 
send  the  line  back  behind  them  they  throw  the 
point  of  the  rod  too  far  back.  They  wave  the  rod 
back,  instead  of  first  raising  the  line  to  the  surface 
of  the  water,  by  lifting  the  rod  top  gently,  and  then 
sharply  throwing  the  line  back,  and  up  into  the 
air  behind  them,  with  a  flip  of  the  top  of  the  rod. 


u 


CASTING  13 

You  should  always  start  your  learner  in  a  swift, 
even-running  stream,  where  his  line  will  be  pulled 
out  taut  for  him  by  the  current  before  each  new 
cast  is  made.  The  act  of  casting  with  a  salmon 
rod  is,  for  the  beginner,  a  straight  overhead  flip- 
flip,  that  is,  a  strong  flip  back  and  upwards  ; 
then  a  sharp  and  firm  stopping  of  the  rod  whilst 
you  may  count  steadily  '  one/  '  two '  ;  then  a 
much  easier  flip  forward  and  upward. 

That  is  the  cast ;  the  essential  acts  of  casting. 

For  the  benefit  of  any  learner  without  a  present 
coach  I  will  try  to  describe  accurately  in  detail  the 
method  of  casting  with  a  salmon  rod.  Such  a 
minute  description  is  necessarily  tedious  to  any 
one  but  the  beginner,  and  should  be  skipped  by 
every  one  else,  except,  perhaps,  the  paragraph 
on  page  15,  in  which  is  pointed  out  the  way  of 
recovering  one's  form  when,  through  being  tired 
or  out  of  practice,  one  is  casting  badly  and 
spoiling  half  the  pleasure  of  one's  fishing.  I 
ought  to  add  that  I  have  never  been  in  the  habit 
of  using  a  Castle  Connell  rod  or  any  rod  of  that 
type,  and  that  I  do  not  think  my  directions 
very  appropriate  for  an  exceedingly  whippy  or 
top-heavy  rod.  And  one  must  remember  that 
almost  every  rod  varies  slightly  in  the  period, 
that  is  to  say  in  the  timing,  of  its  action. 

THE  DETAIL  OF  CASTING 

Before  the  cast  begins  the  rod  must  be  raised, 
usually  to  an  angle  of  about  45°  from  the  water, 


14 

in  order  to  bring  the  line  to  the  surface  before  you 
try  to  throw  it  back  behind  you.  No  rod  can 
throw  back  a  line  which  is  still  left  sunk  deeply 
in  the  water,  except  as  a  very  occasional  effort 
and  in  the  hands  of  a  skilled  fisher. 

For  ordinary  fishing  the  line  must  be  brought  as 
near  the  surface  as  possible  before  every  cast. 

Again,  when  the  flip-flip  has  been  given,  the  rod 
point  is  still  high  in  the  air  and  is  allowed  to  sink 
almost  in  one  movement  to  an  easy  position  in 
which  it  may  be  held  whilst  the  fly  swings  round. 
The  novice  often  fails  to  see  that  the  force  is  all 
put  into  the  very  beginning  of  the  forward  flip, 
and  he  firmly  waves  the  rod  forward  down  to  the 
fishing  position.  His  line  follows  the  downward 
direction  and  falls  in  a  heap. 

Consider  by  itself  the  act  of  throwing  the  line 
forward.  As  you  want  a  line,  at  that  moment 
stretching  back  from  the  rod  top,  to  be  thrown 
straight  forward  over  the  water,  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  the  impetus  must  be  given  at  the  highest  part 
of  the  curve  made  by  the  rod,  for  that  alone  can 
give  the  line  a  forward  pull  parallel  to  the  water 
level.  Similarly,  after  making  the  backward  flip, 
which  is  to  lift  the  line,  the  rod  should  instantly 
be  stopped  firmly  with  the  butt  piece  very  little 
past  the  perpendicular — of  course  the  top  will 
bend  back  rather  more.  Even  so,  the  line  is 
falling  as  it  runs  out  behind  you,  but  if  the  rod  is 
waved  far  back,  as  beginners  almost  always  do, 
the  line  is  dragged  downwards  and  cannot  extend 


KEY  TO  GOOD  CASTING  15 

behind  you,  as  it  is  essential,  for  a  beginner,  that 
it  should  do  in  order  to  prepare  for  a  clean  and 
easy  cast  forward. 

In  describing  the  cast  both  back  and  forward 
again  you  may  notice  that  I  say  that  it  should  be 
a  flip  backwards  and  upwards,  or  forwards  and 
slightly  upwards.  This  is  the  great  key  to  good 
casting.  As  the  flip  back  is  made,  the  wrists  and 
elbows  are  raised,  so  that  the  lower  of  your  two 
wrists  is  almost  shoulder  high.  Then  as  the  line 
runs  back  the  rod,  almost  unconsciously,  is  allowed 
to  sink  six  or  eight  inches  perpendicularly,  and 
as  the  forward  flip  is  given  the  elbows  are  again 
raised,  and  the  point  of  the  rod,  as  it  were, 
pushed  out  forward  and  upward,  with  a  much 
slower  and  slighter  flip  than  the  backward  one. 

Even  when  you  can  cast  well  you  will  often,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  season,  or  when  getting  tired, 
find  that  your  casting  is  not  pleasing  you,  is  not 
so  straight  and  easy  as  it  should  be,  and  that  the  fly 
is  not  falling  at  the  full  stretch  of  the  gut.  Then 
is  the  time  to  remember  to  use  your  wrists  and 
raise  them  high,  and  as  it  were  to  lift  the  flip  back 
and  push  out  and  up  the  cast  forward,  and  I  will 
undertake  that  you  shall  instantly  find  that 
all  your  old  skill  and  lightness  has  returned. 

A  cast,  then,  is  made  thus  (beginning  from  the 
fishing  position  at  the  end  of  the  former  cast)  : — 

1.  Raise  the  rod  slowly  to  bring  the  line  to 
the  surface,  then  (without  any  pause) 

2.  A  sharp  flip  back  and  up,  raising  the  arms 


16  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

and  stopping  the  rod  sharply  when  the  butt 
is  just  beyond  the  upright. 

3.  A  pause  of  about  a  second,  then  an  easy 
flip    forward    and    upward.     (During    the 
pause  the  rod  sinks  perpendicularly  a  few 
inches,  and  at  the  end  of  the  cast  the  arms 
are  fully  outstretched  and  level  with  the 
shoulders.) 

4.  Then  the  rod,   without   a  pause,   gently 
sinks  to  the  fishing  position,  and  the  arms 
are  drawn  in  to  the  sides. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  a  beginner  is  to  get  the 
time  of  the  cast.  He  will  hardly  ever  give  the 
line  time  to  run  out  behind  him  before  making  the 
cast  forward.  With  an  average  length  of  line, 
say  about  three  to  four  rod  lengths  out  from 
the  reel  to  the  fly,  the  time  is  this  : — (spoken 
slowly) — (lift,  then)  FLIP — one — two — flip — (and 
lower) . 

I  need  hardly  say  that  when  you  become  skilful 
you  can  choose  amongst  many  styles  of  casting, 
and  in  each  style  can  fish  with  much  variation ; 
but  when  once  you  have  mastered  the  simple 
'  overhead '  cast,  as  it  is  called,  you  can  fish  almost 
any  pool  perfectly  well,  and  soon  other  ways  of 
casting  will  come  to  you  naturally  and  easily. 
For  myself  I  almost  always  use  another  cast  which 
consists  in  throwing  the  line  not  overhead,  but  to 
one  side  of  you,  and  always  up  the  stream,  no 
matter  from  which  side  you  are  fishing.  Then, 


CASTING  AGAINST  THE  WIND  17 

chiefly  with  a  turn  of  the  wrists,  you  switch  it 
forward  and  across  in  the  line  that  you  wish  it 
to  take  in  order  to  cover  the  stream  for  the  next 
cast. 

Casting  against  a  high  wind  blowing  almost 
straight  in  his  face  is  a  severe  trial  to  a  beginner. 
His  fly  will  persist  in  falling  back  in  a  muddle  just 
when  the  gut  seemed  about  to  uncurl  and  fall  at 
its  full  stretch.  He  puts  more  and  more  force 
into  the  cast  and  quickly  gets  tired  and  dis- 
heartened. He  should  go  at  it  not  violently  but 
more  quietly,  should  throw  the  line  rather  on  to 
the  surface  of  the  water  than  over  it  as  usual,  and 
should  finish  his  cast  with  the  rod  top  actually 
touching  the  water.  He  should  cast  quietly  but 
cast,  as  it  were,  at  the  water,  and  he  will  soon 
find  that  he  can  cast  even  against  such  a  wind 
quite  comfortably  and  quite  well.  But  a  good 
rod  is  a  great  help  to  him. 

WHERE  TO  CAST 

Now  as  to  the  direction  of  your  cast.  Your 
books  will  tell  you  to  cast  down  and  across  the 
stream  and  at  an  angle  of  about  45°  ;  and  so 
you  should  do  in  straightforward,  simple  streams, 
where  such  a  cast  will  enable  you  to  put  your  fly 
well  beyond  the  lie  of  the  fish.  But  never  hesitate 
to  vary  the  angle  to  suit  any  pool.  Especially  in 
swirling  pot  holes  or  in  any  pool  where  there  is  a 
strong  eddy  on  one  or  both  sides,  a  cast  made 

B 


i8  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

straight  across  or  even  slightly  up-stream,  and 
fished  by  raising  the  rod  point  slowly  as  the  fly 
comes  into  the  main  current,  appears  to  be  par- 
ticularly attractive  to  the  fish.  It  is  not  only  to 
salmon  that  this  cast  is  deadly,  for  I  have  con- 
stantly found  that  large  trout  will  snatch  the 
salmon  fly  as  it  is  just  on  the  point  of  being  towed 
out  of  the  eddy  into  which  it  fell. 

Such  swirling  pools  are  generally  deep,  and  the 
fish  usually  take  best  at  and  below  the  point  where 
the  heavy  boil  ends  and  where  the  violent  surging 
water  begins  to  grow  shallow  and  to  run  fan- wise, 
swift  and  glassy  to  all  sides.  There  it  is  well  to 
make  two  kinds  of  casts  at  each  stand,  one 
thrown  well  across  to  take  fish  lying  in  the  eddy 
or  on  the  farther  edge  of  the  heavy  water,  the 
other  barely  clearing  the  heavy  water  to  hang 
well  over  fish  lying  on  the  nearer  edge  of  the 
heavy  water.  Cast  thus  the  fly  will  not  be  swept 
over  these  fish  as  quickly  as  you  will  find  that  in 
the  former  cast  it  is  swept  away  when  once  the 
swirling  current  catches  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  water  is  dead  low 
and  the  fish  shy,  you  will  often  find  that  the 
quicker  the  fly  can  be  made  to  sweep  over  them 
the  better  is  your  chance  of  a  rise.  At  such  times 
I  have  over  and  over  again  for  weeks  together 
caught  almost  all  my  fish  by  casting  a  small  fly 
straight  across  the  stream,  keeping  the  fly  near  the 
surface  by  raising  the  rod  point  in  a  series  of  small, 
steady  lifts,  and  ending  by  pulling  in  some  yards 


CASTING  LIGHTLY  19 

of  line  by  hand  as  the  fly  fishes  the  nearer  edge  of 
the  stream.  Then,  of  course,  one  must  '  shoot ' 
that  slack  line  through  the  rings  as  the  next  cast 
is  made.  Indeed,  you  are  almost  compelled  to 
draw  in  line  by  hand  in  such  slow  waters  in  order 
to  prevent  the  line  from  sinking  too  deep  for  you 
to  make  the  next  cast,  and  also  in  order  to  ensure 
that  the  fly  shall  fall  softly  on  the  water. 

The  soft  falling  of  the  fly  on  the  water  is  not  so 
important  when  waters  are  high  or  coloured,  but 
is  a  very  vital  matter  in  low  and  '  gin '  clear 
streams.     People  will  tell  you  that  it  is  of  no 
practical  importance  to  cast  a  salmon  fly  lightly 
and  without  any  splash.     Pay  no  attention  to 
them.     When  the  water  gets  low  and  clear,  light 
casting — and  light  tackle  too — becomes  of  cardinal 
importance.     I  have,  hundreds  of  times,  in  low 
water  seen  fish  bolt  off  the  shallows  into  deep 
water  when  a  clumsy  cast,  of  my  own  or  of  some 
other's  making,  has  fallen  near  them.    Many  times, 
also,  I  have  seen  the  wave  made  by  a  fish  moving 
off,   though  more   quietly,   at  the  sight  of  the 
finest  tackle  lightly  cast,  and  when,  from  the  place 
in  which  they  were  lying,  it  was  almost  certain 
that  they  could  not  have  seen   the  fisher.      If 
they  can  thus  be  so  alarmed  as  to  move  off,  how 
often  must  they,  one  would  suppose,  in  a  higher 
water,  detect  the  gut  or  the  splash  when  either 
they  are  not  so  much  frightened  as  to  move  away, 
or  by  reason  of  the  greater  volume  of  water  we 
are  unable  to  see  that  they  have  done  so. 


20  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

MOVING   BETWEEN  THE   CASTS 

There  is  no  hard-and-fast  rule  to  be  laid  down 
as  to  the  pace  at  which  you  should  cover  the 
water  when  salmon  fishing.  Speaking  generally, 
one  moves  about  a  yard  after  each  cast,  but  when 
your  fly  is  covering  the  very  best  part  of  the  pool 
or  some  place  where  you  know  that  a  good  fish 
is  lying,  you  may  well  move  less  than  a  yard  at  a 
time,  or,  still  better,  may  make  a  second  cast, 
placed  rather  less  across  the  stream,  before  you 
move  from  each  stand.  There  is  one  great  error 
to  be  avoided  which  is  a  fault  very  common  with 
beginners  and  one  into  which  older  fishers  often 
fall ;  you  must  avoid  moving  down  the  pool 
whilst  the  fly  is  being  swept  over  the  fish.  Take 
your  step  or  steps  down  the  pool  before  you  cast 
the  fly,  and  do  not  move  again  until  that  cast  is 
fished  out.  To  move  down  whilst  the  fly  is 
fishing,  unless  perhaps  in  a  very  swift  bit  of  water, 
obviously  slackens  the  line  and  spoils  the  fishing 
of  the  fly.  The  chief  object  in  striving  to  cast 
well  is  to  have  the  line  always  stretched  taut  to  the 
fly,  partly  in  order  that  the  fly,  by  stemming  the 
current,  may  appear  to  the  fish  a  living  thing, 
partly  that  the  fish,  if  he  takes  the  fly,  may  not 
escape  being  hooked.  Both  these  ends  are  lost 
if  you  move  down-stream  whilst  the  fly  is  fishing. 
You  should  try  to  move  down  whilst  you  are 
slowly  lifting  the  fly  as  it  hangs  on  the  nearer 
edge  of  the  stream  after  the  cast  is  over,  but  if 


AVOID  DISTURBING  FISH  21 

the  bank  is  rough  or  the  wading  difficult  you  have 
to  move  down  as  best  you  can,  but  always  after 
the  fly  has  done  its  journey  across  the  pool. 

Do  not  wade  near  the  place  where  the  fish  lie 
unless  neither  you  nor  any  one  else  is  to  fish  that 
water  again.  Salmon  are  not  very  shy  in  big 
waters,  but  in  low,  clear  water  you  may  easily 
prevent  them  taking  altogether.  Indeed,  I  think 
that  perhaps  one  of  the  chief  reasons  why  fishing 
straight  across  the  stream  so  often  pays  in  low 
waters  is  that  this  method  keeps  the  angler  and 
his  gleaming  rod  well  away  from  the  fish.  For  in 
sunlight  the  rod  gleams  brightly,  and  our  absurd 
aluminium  reels  and  nickelled  gaffs  flash  in  the 
sunlight,  and  the  net  is  spread  in  vain  in  the  sight 
of  any  bird. 

Yet  fishers  constantly  wade  too  far  in  and  spoil 
their  own  sport.  The  fact  is  that  one  watches  the 
place  where  the  fly  is  fishing,  forgetting  the  water 
that  one  has  just  passed. 

There  is  a  strong  craving,  too,  in  all  of  us,  even 
the  oldest,  to  cover  just  a  yard  or  two  more  water 
than  we  comfortably  can  reach.  It  is  a  mistake 
from  all  points  of  view,  but  it  has  to  be  reckoned 
with,  and  you  should  constantly  look  at  the  water 
opposite  to  the  place  at  which  you  are  standing  in 
order  to  see  that  you  are  not  getting  too  far  in. 

If  you  have  plenty  of  water  to  fish,  do  not  allow 
yourself  to  become  a  slow,  pottering  fisher. 
Except  at  the  best  spots  fish  quickly,  move 
rather  more  than  a  yard,  even  up  to  two  yards, 

B2 


22  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

between  the  casts,  and  rather  leave  time  to  come 
back  and  try  the  pools  again  than  consume  your 
time  in  slowly  going  over  them  once.  The  fish 
that  is  not  willing  to  take  now  may  very  well  do 
so  after  noon  or  as  the  evening  closes  in.  Two  of 
the  soundest  pieces  of  advice  that  I  know  came 
down  to  me  from  an  arrant  old  North  Yorkshire 
poacher  who  had  fished  all  his  life  in  the  river  Tees, 
and  who,  about  the  year  1820,  used  to  teach  your 
great-grandfather  to  fish.  This  old  rascal  had 
two  constant  maxims.  The  first  was,  '  Keep 
stirring  your  foot,'  by  which,  of  course,  he  meant 
keep  moving  on,  so  as  to  cover  new  water,  a  most 
essential  point  in  trout  fishing  with  the  wet  fly,  and 
hardly  less  valuable  to  the  salmon  fisher.  His 
second  maxim  was  intended  solely  for  the  salmon 
fisher,  and  it  was  this,  '  You  've  allers  a  chance  of 
a  daft  'un  or  a  blind  'un.'  This  uncouth  phrase 
was  intended  to  express  the  fact  that  on  the  very 
worst  day  and  at  the  least  expected  time  and  place 
you  may  well  catch  a  salmon.  On  many  and 
many  a  hopeless  day  I  have  persevered,  with  that 
in  mind,  and  have  not  missed  the  reward.  I  still 
have  a  salmon  fly  of  that  old  man's  making, 
inherited  from  his  pupil  of  1820,  together  with 
much  quaint  old  tackle.  The  fly  is  tied  upon  a  big 
2j-inch  hook  of  the  old  '  Sproat '  bend.  The  body 
is  a  huge  caterpillar  of  coarse  red  wool,  as  thick  as 
a  lead  pencil,  with  a  fibre  of  gold  tinsel  from  an 
old  epaulette  twisted  round  it.  There  is  a  stubby 
tail  made  of  a  few  barred  strands  from  a  jay's 


HOLDING  THE  ROD  23 

wing,  and  the  fly  is  winged  with  two  tail  feathers 
of  the  wren,  tied  so  as  to  lie  almost  flat  along 
the  body,  like  the  wings  of  a  stone-fly.  It 
has  no  hackle,  throat,  cheeks,  butt,  tag,  horns,  or 
topping,  none  of  the  nonsense  dear  to  the  modern 
salmon  fisher,  but  I  have  often  been  assured  by 
my  grandfather  that  with  this  fly  the  old  man 
caught  as  many  salmon  as  those  fishers  who  could 
command  the  best  flies  of  that  day,  and  that 
except  in  very  low  waters  he  used  no  other  fly 
but  this. 

How  TO  HOLD  THE  SALMON  ROD 

The  friendly  scoffer  thinks  that  all  fishing  is  a 
gentle  and  restful  method  of  enjoying  the  fresh  air 
and  the  beauties  of  nature,  and  that  as  a  manly 
exercise  it  is  a  mere  nothing,  perhaps  something 
more  vigorous  than  billiards.  Tell  him  that 
salmon  fishing  is  hard,  bodily  labour,  and  he  can- 
not believe  that  you  are  serious.  It  looks  so  easy. 
But  if  you  can  only  decoy  him  into  a  pair  of  long 
waders,  and  put  him  in  a  strong  water  and  with  a 
big  rod  in  his  hands,  to  attempt  a  day's  salmon 
fishing,  you  will  hear  no  more  criticism  of  that 
kind.  Even  hardened  salmon  fishers,  after  a 
cold,  rough  day  in  heavy  water,  I  have  known  to 
come  in  almost  too  tired  to  eat,  and  I  have  more 
than  once  seen  a  teasing  hostess  take  a  malicious 
pleasure  in  putting  them,  after  dinner,  into  a 
comfortable  arm-chair  near  a  hot  fire  in  order  to 


24  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

enjoy  seeing  their  heroic  efforts  to  avoid  the  awful 
crime  of  falling  asleep  in  the  drawing-room.  It  is 
not  only  that  the  casting  is  hard  work  and  finds 
out  all  the  untrained  muscles  in  your  back,  but 
the  common  way  of  holding  a  salmon  rod  when  the 
cast  is  over  is  very  tiring  also.  After  the  cast, 
and  when  the  fly  is  fishing,  the  butt  of  the  rod  is 
usually  placed  against  the  hip  or  flank  of  the  angler, 
and  its  weight  is  supported  by  one  hand  or  the 
other,  which  holds  the  rod  some  eighteen  inches 
beyond  the  reel.  But  owing  to  the  leverage  of 
the  long,  heavy  rod  the  position  is  a  strained  one, 
and  even  to  strong  arms,  not  hardened  by  incessant 
fishing,  becomes,  in  time,  very  tiring. 

Before  a  long  day  is  over  your  forearm  and  elbow 
can  literally  ache  with  the  stiffness  of  this  position, 
added  to  the  exertion  of  much  casting,  and  you  long 
for  some  change,  to  rest  the  muscles  on  which  the 
strain  falls.  Well,  there  is  another  and  a  much 
easier  way  of  holding  the  rod  either  as  a  change 
from  or  as  a  substitute  for  the  more  common 
mode.  The  method  is  this : — As  you  make 
the  cast,  one  hand,  of  course,  is  below  the  reel 
and  the  other  is  holding  the  rod  about  eighteen 
inches  above  it — about  the  top  of  the  cork 
handle,  if  there  is  one.  As  the  cast  ends,  you 
retain  the  grasp  of  this  upper  hand  only,  and  you 
draw  back  the  rod  until  the  reel  passes  your  side, 
placing  your  other  hand  on  the  rod  just  below  the 
place  where  the  lowest  ring  usually  stands. 
You  will  find  that  the  seventeen-foot  or 


HOLDING  THE  ROD  'SHORT'  25 

eighteen-foot  rod  is  almost,  though  not  quite, 
balanced  in  your  hands,  and  further,  that  you  can 
feel  the  pull  of  the  line  much  better,  and  that  you 
can  strike  with  great  quickness,  yet  without 
excessive  force.  My  own  firm  belief  is  that  from 
the  time  when  I  learned  to  hold  the  rod  in  this 
way  I  have  hooked  a  much  greater  proportion  of 
the  fish  which  have  touched  my  fly,  and  have 
hardly  lost  any  by  hard  striking.  Of  course 
there  is  no  mystery  about  this  way  of  holding  the 
rod  :  it  is  known  to  many  old  fishers  and  to  not 
so  many  young  ones,  who  are  apt  to  regard  it  as 
not  quite  so  taking  in  appearance  as  the  commoner 
way.  But  I  have  the  very  highest  opinion  of  it, 
not  only  for  its  ease  and  comfort,  but  as  a  great 
help  to  quick  and  certain  hooking  of  the  fish.  I 
think  that  the  mere  drawing  back  of  the  rod 
involved  is  valuable  as  tightening  the  line  after 
every  cast,  but  the  greatest  point  is  the  quickness 
with  which  you  get  in  touch  with  your  fish,  and 
the  freedom  from  the  risk  of  breaking  the  gut  by 
too  sudden  a  stroke  on  feeling  the  pull  of  a  salmon. 
I  first  began  using  this  way  of  holding  the  rod 
from  observing  it  practised  by  two  of  the  best  and 
most  experienced  fishers  that  I  know,  and  one  of 
them  when  fishing  with  me  has  in  three  days 
taken  fourteen  salmon  on  the  same  fly  from 
successive  rises  and  without  missing  one  single 
rise.  Years  ago  I  used  to  think  that  an  average 
of  one  fish  landed  for  every  three  rises  was  fairly 
good  fishing,  but  now  I  think  that  one  ought 


26  ON  CASTING  THE  FLY 

to  kill  on  an  average  well  over  two  fish  out  of  every 
three  decent  pulls  or  rises. 

Holding  the  rod  in  this  way  is  not  difficult  to 
learn,  but  you  can  bungle  it.  Some  men  never 
can  keep  the  reel  away  from  their  bodies  or  cloth- 
ing, or  they  manage  to  hold  the  line  so  that  it 
cannot  go  free  when  a  fish  takes,  but  a  very  little 
practice  will  make  this  easy.  It  will  be  found,  too, 
that  the  most  easy  position  with  a  heavy  rod  is 
that  where  the  right  elbow  is  placed  upon  the  rod 
above  the  reel,  and  the  upward  pressure  of  the 
butt  is  checked  against  the  right  forearm.  Even 
a  very  big  and  heavy  rod  held  in  this  way  seems 
altogether  lighter  and  livelier. 

One  hint  or  two  upon  carrying  your  rod  whilst 
walking  from  place  to  place  on  the  bank,  and 
especially  through  woods  or  bushes.  The  top 
seems  to  flip  about  much  less  if  the  rod  is  carried 
almost  horizontal  and  with  the  reel  uppermost, 
and  whilst  going  through  trees  it  is  advisable  to 
carry  it  butt  foremost.  If  carried  over  your 
shoulder,  you  will  find  that  the  closer  you  hold  your 
hand  to  the  point  where  the  rod  is  resting  on  your 
shoulder  the  less  the  rod  will  flip  about  behind 
you.  These  things  may  seem  trifles  to  tell  you, 
but  when  you  are  carrying  a  heavy  load  of  fish 
it  is  intensely  annoying  to  have  your  rod  con- 
stantly slashing  against  or  catching  in  the  trees 
as  you  pass  them,  and  it  is  anything  but  easy  to 
prevent  it. 


Ill 

HOW   TO    FISH 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — When  you  have  learnt  to  cast 
a  fly  tolerably,  you  then  begin  to  tackle  the  real 
craft.  That  is,  how  to  fish  ;  how  best  to  make 
use  of  your  power  of  casting  so  that  salmon 
may  be  induced  to  take  the  fly  you  throw  for 
them. 

There  are  few  subjects  in  sport  upon  which 
more  theories  are  held,  or  about  which  more 
nonsense  is  talked.  These  theories  are  held 
almost  as  articles  of  faith  and  are  stated  with 
angry  conviction.  Gillies  and  fishing-keepers  are 
proverbial  for  their  ignorant  omniscience.  Nearly 
all  of  them  believe  that  there  is  only  one  way — 
and  that,  of  course,  is  their  way — to  do  everything, 
and  the  moment  that  they  see  a  newcomer  fish 
otherwise,  they  regard  him  as  little  better  than  a 
fool,  and  if  he  does  not  speedily  conform  to  their 
ways,  he  will  receive  neither  information  nor  help 
from  them — and  you  want  their  information  as  to 
where  the  fish  lie  and  where  they  take.  The  truth 
is  that  there  are  many  ways  to  fish  well,  and  no  one 
way  is  the  best  in  all  cases.  You  may  fish  either 
deep  or  on  the  surface,  with  flies  large  or  small, 
plain  or  gaudy,  working  the  fly  or  bringing  the  rod 


27 


28  HOW  TO  FISH 

round  perfectly  steady,  and  in  general  you  may 
do  well  with  each  method. 

The  fact  that  different  styles  of  fishing  do  hold 
their  ground  amongst  good  fishers  suggests — as 
I  believe  is  the  case — that  no  one  style  should  be 
adhered  to  slavishly,  and  that  to  fish  with  the 
greatest  effect  one  should  vary  the  methods  of 
fishing  with  the  varying  waters  fished.    And  not 
only  do  salmon  pools  differ  greatly  in  character, 
but  the  same  pool  often  requires  fishing  in  a  totally 
different  place  and  manner  according  as  the  river 
is  high  or  low.     Personally  I  was  taught  to  hold 
the  rod  almost  level  over  the  water  and  to  fish  a 
long  line,  letting  the  fly  sink  deep,  and  fishing 
without  the  least  lifting  motion  of  the  rod  point. 
A  fine  fisher,  then  always  fishing  near  me,  used 
the  opposite  method.     With  rod  held  high,  as  in 
trouting,  and  with  a  rather  short  line,  cast  lightly 
upon  the  water,  he  kept  a  much  larger  fly  always 
skimming  near  the  surface  with  a  constant  lifting 
motion  intended  to  give  the  fly  a  lifelike  play. 
Over  our  first  five  years  of  fishing  together  he 
maintained  a  slight  but  distinct  lead  in  the  number 
of  salmon  caught,  but  in  every  single  year  the  fish 
taken  in  the  same  water  by  the  deeper  fishing  of  a 
small  fly  averaged  from  I  to  3  Ibs.  heavier  than 
those  taken  by  the  larger  fly  played  near  the 
surface.     Other  results  we  noticed.     One  method 
succeeded  constantly  in  places  where  the  other 
fisher  used  to  fail,  and  in  a  big  dark  water  the 
surface  method  was  greatly  inferior  to  the  other. 


TWO  STYLES  OF  FISHING  29 

So  we  came  to  vary  the  style  of  fishing  to  suit, 
as  we  judged,  the  different  pools  and  waters. 
The  result  is  that  now  in  the  rough  stream  of  a 
medium-sized  river,  or  in  deep,  strong  waters,  we 
fish  with  a  long  line  cast  well  down-stream,  and 
allowed  to  come  round  as  deep  in  the  water  as 
possible  without  any  playing  of  the  rod,  which  is 
held  with  the  tip  only  two  or  three  feet  above  the 
water.  But  in  low  water,  and  in  quiet  streams 
or  glassy  swirling  pools,  unless  very  strong  indeed, 
the  fly  is  cast  much  more  across  the  stream  and 
worked  round  by  a  series  of  short  lifts  until  the 
rod  is  almost  upright,  and  often  line  is  drawn  in 
by  hand  before  making  the  next  cast. 

The  clearer  the  water,  and  the  more  shy  the  fish, 
the  more  I  find  myself  fishing  on  the  surface  and 
playing  the  fly  quickly.  There  are  many  tricks 
and  variations.  Across  a  glassy  swirl  one  con- 
stantly casts  at  right  angles  to  the  central  stream 
or  even  somewhat  up-stream.  After  almost  every 
deeply  fished  cast  one  allows  a  slight  hang  to  the 
fly  and  then  slowly  draws  it  up  with  a  series  of 
short  lifts.  In  fishing  from  the  inner  side  of  a 
curving  stream  a  quite  exaggerated  hang,  after 
the  fly  appears  to  have  swung  below  you,  and  then 
a  slow,  jerky  lifting,  with  rod  stretched  out  far  over 
the  stream,  has  constantly  produced  fine  fish  just 
as  the  fly  was  about  to  be  taken  from  the  water. 
They  seem  either  to  follow  it,  or — as  I  have  seen 
them  do — to  rush  at  it  out  of  the  part  already 
fished,  as  they  see  the  fly  being  drawn  past  them 


30  HOW  TO  FISH 

up  the  edge  of  the  stream.  Often  the  heaviest 
fish  will  thus  take  the  fly,  and  take  it  so  late  that 
the  only  way  to  strike  the  hook  home — as  you 
must  do  with  the  line  just  about  to  leave  the 
water  and  the  rod  nearly  upright — is  to  jerk  the 
top  violently  backward  so  that  the  weight  of  the 
line  may  jerk  the  hook  hard  into  the  fish.  Often 
when  a  pool  has  been  fished  down  blank  in  the 
ordinary  style  you  may  get  a  fish  or  two  at  once 
by  fishing  it  over  again,  either  by  starting  to  fish 
from  the  bottom  and  backing  upwards,  or  by 
fishing  from  the  top  downwards,  and  in  either 
case  casting  straight  across  the  stream  and  keeping 
the  rod  top  well  up-stream  as  the  fly  comes  round. 
I  have  even  seen  a  fish  that  in  a  dead  low  water 
had  been  pricked,  and  would  not  rise  again,  taken 
by  the  fisher  standing  at  the  head  of  the  shrunken 
stream,  holding  out  his  rod  over  the  current  and 
letting  down  the  same  fly  to  his  fish. 

One  more  caution  to  you.  Be  most  careful  not 
to  bring  round  the  rod  point  faster  than  the  line  is 
being  brought  round  by  the  current.  This  is  a 
very  common  fault,  especially  when  one  is  im- 
patient or  pressed  for  time,  but  it  is  a  bad  fault,  for 
it  keeps  the  line  slack  instead  of  taut  to  the  fly. 
Rather  do  the  opposite  and  keep  the  point  of 
your  rod  out  over  the  stream,  particularly  if  the 
fly  has  to  swing  close  in  below  you.  When  fishing 
from  the  inside  of  a  curving  stream  you  should  be 
most  careful  to  do  this. 

I  would  not  have  any  one  think  that  any  of  these 


IN  DEAD  LOW  WATER  31 

methods  are  stated  as  being  necessarily  the  best, 
still  less  as  the  only  good  ways  of  fishing.  The 
more  you  can  vary  your  fishing  with  the  water  the 
better  you  will  fish,  but  some  idea  of  the  ways 
that  others  find  to  succeed  may  help  you  when  no 
mentor  is  at  hand  and  the  fish  utterly  decline  your 
offers. 

In  quick,  narrow  rushes,  when  the  river  is  dead 
low,  a  way  that  often  succeeds  is  this :  with  a  sea- 
trout  fly  or  a  big  March  brown  on  a  light  line  and 
thin  gut,  make  your  cast  straight  across  the  rush, 
then  with  outstretched  rod  let  the  fly  sink  as  deep 
as  possible  into  the  centre  of  the  current,  then  with 
a  short,  jerky  motion  begin  towing  it  up-stream  as 
it  approaches  the  side  on  which  you  stand.  Con- 
stantly the  fish  will  grab  the  fly  just  after  the 
jerks  begin. 

On  one,  as  I  thought,  quite  hopeless  after- 
noon in  September  1904,  hot,  hazy,  and  windless, 
with  a  glaring  sun,  in  a  dead  low  water,  in  one 
short  stream,  I  took  in  this  way,  with  a  double- 
handed  trout  rod  and  a  small  green-bodied, 
heckam-peckam  fly,  three  fish  of  13,  12,  and  5  Ibs., 
and  lost  a  fourth.  Many  and  many  a  time  the 
odd  fish  that  has  saved  a  blank  day  in  August  or 
September  has  come  by  this  method  when  the 
ordinary  salmon  fly  and  its  manoeuvres  were  quite 
useless.  Again  on  two  days  in  the  season  of  1907, 
in  the  dead  low  September  waters  of  that  year,  I 
took  four  salmon  each  day  with  the  same  trout 
rod  and  tiny  fly.  For  this  kind  of  fishing  I  use  a 


32  HOW  TO  FISH 

thin  sea-trout  cast  ended  off  with  three  feet  of 
ordinary  trout  worming  gut,  but  gut  always  new 
and  sound,  and  watched  most  carefully  to  detect 
the  least  sign  of  weakening.  Such  gut  costs  only 
a  couple  of  shillings  or  so  for  a  hundred  strands, 
and  one  must  simply  throw  away  the  cast  so  soon 
as  it  becomes  frayed  or  weakened  and  make  up  a 
new  one  in  its  place.  It  sounds  alarming  to  hook 
large  salmon  upon  such  thin  gut,  but  if  sound  and 
new,  such  gut  is  very  strong  indeed,  and  with  a 
light  rod  you  need  have  no  fear  of  a  break  unless 
the  fish  can  get  round  some  rock  or  snag.  These 
things,  of  course,  are  generally  more  dangerous 
than  ever  in  low  waters,  and  of  them  you  must  take 
your  chance,  and  must,  when  broken  on  them — 
as  I  constantly  have  been  broken  in  low  summer 
waters — reflect  that  you  might  easily  have  fared 
no  better  with  the  strongest  gut,  and  that  with  it 
you  would  probably  never  have  hooked  the  fish 
at  all,  nor  had  the  fun  of  his  fight  and  loss. 

But  for  very  low,  clear  water  a  very  light  line 
is  almost  as  important  as  thin  gut.  Not  only  is  the 
splash  of  its  fall  much  less,  but  the  feebler  current 
can  float  a  light  line  and  give  the  fly  a  lively 
motion  when  the  ordinary  salmon  line  is  almost 
useless  except  in  the  rush  of  the  streams.  How- 
ever, when  in  despair  you  have  taken  to  your 
small  flies  and  trout  tackle,  it  is  worth  while 
occasionally  to  try  a  big  salmon  fly  in  the  streams. 
Occasionally  a  fish  that  has  not  seen  a  big  fly  for 
some  time  will  seize  one  in  the  very  smallest  water. 


PRICKED  FISH  33 

When  you  have  risen  a  fish  and  failed  to  hook  him, 
you  may  be  in  doubt  as  to  what  is  the  best  thing 
to  do.  If  he  has  been  pricked  he  may  come  again, 
but  he  is  not  likely  to  do  so.  But  the  mere  fact 
that  you  have  had  a  hard  pull  is  nothing  against 
the  fish  taking  the  fly  again.  I  have  taken  a  fish 
at  the  fourth  offer  which  had  taken  my  fly  hard 
three  times  within  as  many  minutes.  Sometimes 
they  will  again  take  the  fly  cast  to  them  instantly, 
and  some  people  advise  a  long  wait,  but  personally 
I  almost  always  remain  where  I  am,  pull  in  three 
or  four  yards  of  line  at  the  reel,  and  from  the  same 
stand  fish  down  to  the  fish  by  letting  out  at  each 
case  about  a  yard  of  the  line  drawn  in.  If  that 
fails,  and  I  do  not  want  to  fish  on,  I  go  out  of  the 
stream  and  begin  twenty  yards  higher  up  and  fish 
down  to  him  again. 


c 


IV 

ON   FLIES 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Many  fishers,  after  learning  to 
make  a  cast,  think  that  the  flies  are  everything. 
There  are  some  even  who  think  that  success  is  to 
be  had  only  with  double  hooks,  or  with  some 
spinning  head  or  some  fanciful  '  short  rising '  hook 
of  monstrous  shape.  Still  more  salmon  fishers, 
however,  pin  their  faith  to  an  endless  variety  of 
gorgeous  flies  with  charming  names — names  that 
plainly  speak  their  real  use  and  object,  that  is,  to 
catch  the  fisher,  not  the  fish.  These  names  are 
themselves  a  comedy. 

Some  are  truculent,  as  Butcher,  Bull-dog, 
Thunder  and  Lightning,  Black  Dose — carrying  in 
their  names  the  idea  of  triumphant  compulsion 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  unfortunate  salmon. 
Others  are  romantic,  as  Fairy,  Silver  Grey,  Green 
Highlander,  Golden  Eagle,  Snowfly,  Kate.  Others 
recall  the  deeds  of  legendary  heroes,  such  as  Jock 
Scott,  Popham,  Wilkinson.  Their  varieties,  or 
supposed  varieties,  run  into  thousands,  and  the 
whole  lot  show  plainly  that  the  fisher  is  quite  as 
gullible  as  the  fish. 

In  a  recent  book  on  Salmon  Fishing,  there 
are  some  really  beautiful  coloured  plates  of 


FLIES  35 

seventy-two  of  the  best-known  salmon  flies. 
For  any  one  who  is  fond  of  salmon  flies  these 
wonderful  plates  make  the  book  a  delightful 
possession.  But  the  author,  Mr.  Hodgson,  excuses 
himself  for  confining  his  list  to  so  small  a  number 
of  patterns,  and  he  '  ventures  to  hope '  that 
these  flies  would  be  a  sufficient  outfit  to  enable 
one  to  fish  on  any  ordinary  river  in  the  United 
Kingdom.  But  just  imagine  the  fisher  hunting 
through  a  box  containing  half  a  dozen  flies  of  each 
pattern — or  of  a  quarter  of  the  patterns.  And 
any  one  who  looks  at  these  beautifully  coloured 
flies  must  see  that  most  of  them  are  of  precisely 
similar  type,  and  dozens  of  them  are  for  all 
practical  fishing  purposes  identical — all  dressed 
with  the  same  general  type  of  heavy  mixed  wing, 
with  its  yellow  topping  of  golden  pheasant,  and 
a  golden  yellow  tail,  and  the  bodies  shrouded  by  a 
thick  and  heavy  hackle  varying  only  in  shades. 

In  shape  and  general  design  the  professional  fly 
tier  commonly  makes  but  little  variation,  and  his 
numberless  patterns  differ  from  one  another  only 
in  a  few  minor  details  of  their  multi-coloured 
gaudiness.  In  truth,  a  good  fisher  with  only 
half  a  dozen  patterns  of  really  varied  flies  is,  so  far 
as  catching  salmon  goes,  not  one  whit  behind  the 
man  who  arms  himself  with  every  fly  and  angling 
'  requisite  '  that  Hardy  or  Farlow  or  Malloch  will 
so  cheerfully  sell  to  him. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  sneer  at  the  possessor  of 
many  flies.  There  are  plenty  of  keen  fishers  to 


36  ON  FLIES 

whom  the  making  or  collecting  of  workmanlike 
flies  is  in  itself  a  labour  of  love,  but  I  think  it  is 
generally  true  that  the  better  the  fisher  and  the 
greater  his  opportunities  of  fishing,  the  fewer  are 
the  flies  that  you  shall  find  him  using — certainly 
it  is  so  with  the  most  skilful  fishers  that  I  have 
known. 

THE  CHOICE  OF  FLIES 

In  my  own  opinion,  if  a  fly  is  neat  and  workman- 
like, well  shaped,  and  with  wing  and  hackle  dressed 
sufficiently  lightly  to  play  freely  in  the  water,  it  is 
of  comparatively  small  importance  after  what 
pattern  or  of  what  colours  the  various  parts  are 
composed.  There  are,  of  course,  points  upon 
which  some  variety  is  obviously  desirable.  In  big 
waters,  or  in  waters  stained  with  mud  or  with  peat 
from  moorland  streams,  one  instinctively  feels 
that  the  fly  should  be  large  and  bright  in  order 
that  it  may  be  seen  by  as  many  fish  as  possible. 
Salmon  have  wonderfully  good  sight  at  all  times 
of  the  day  and  night,  and  even  in  stained  or  muddy 
water  they  can  see  the  fly  in  an  astonishing  way. 
Still,  if  fish  are  ever  to  be  tempted  to  take  the  fly, 
the  first  essential  is  that  they  should  see  it ;  and 
so  one  demands  some  flies  that  shall  be  good  to 
see.  For  this  purpose  I  use  either  a  Jock  Scott  or 
a  sort  of  Silver  Wilkinson,  a  silver  body  dressed 
with  a  white  or  pale  blue  hackle,  and  having  a 
turkey  wing  with  two  large,  bright  jungle  cocks 
over  it.  Then  one  wants  some  dark,  sober  fly  as  a 


A  SELECT  FEW  37 

contrast  to  the  former  ones  in  order  to  make  a 
change — rather  for  the  fisher  than  for  the  fish — 
when  the  bright  flies  have  been  well  tried  and  have 
proved  for  the  time  being  unable  to  attract  the 
fish.  For  this  purpose  I  generally  use  a  fly  with 
a  rather  rough  body  of  claret  wool,  and  with  a 
claret  hackle  and  a  mallard  wing,  or  else  a  very 
similar  fly  with  a  smooth  body  of  port-wine 
coloured  silk  and  a  '  pigeon's  blood '  hackle,  with 
brown  or  dun  turkey  wings.  With  a  few  flies  of 
each  type — Jock  Scott,  Silver  body,  and  Claret — 
I  should  be  well  content  to  tackle  a  day's  fishing, 
ay,  or  a  week's  or  a  month's  fishing  on  any  river 
whatever,  unless  it  were  very  low  and  clear. 
Then  I  should  like  to  have  the  choice  of  about 
three  more  flies — the  port  fly  described  above,  a 
sober  little  fly  with  dun  turkey  wing  and  rough 
black  and  orange-brown  body,  known  to  me  as 
a  '  Gipps/  and  a  green  heckam-peckam. 

In  the  matter  of  flies  I  am  therefore  a  heretic 
who  thinks  nothing  of  fishing  through  a  long  day 
without  changing  the  fly  more  than  once,  and  who 
would  almost  equally  value  his  chances  of  taking 
fish  with  any  well-dressed  fly  not  excessive  in  size 
and  gaudiness.  But  salmon,  even  on  the  good 
days,  do  not  take  every  five  minutes,  and  it  is 
more  satisfactory  to  be  using  a  fly  in  which  you 
have  full  confidence.  If  the  fish  will  not  take  a 
fly  with  which  you  have  lately  done  well,  you  feel 
confident  that  it  is  because  they  are  not  in  taking 
humour.  But  with  a  new  and  untried  pattern  of 

C2 


38  ON  FLIES 

fly  hope  soon  gives  place  to  doubt,  and  doubt 
quickly  leads  to  dismissal — in  favour,  as  Mr. 
Dooley  said  of  the  anti-Dreyfus  witnesses,  of  some 
'  thried  and  thrusted  perjurer/ 

You  will  soon,  and  often,  go  through  the  stage 
when  after  some  lucky  day  you  pin  your  faith  to, 
and  for  long  catch  nearly  all  your  fish  upon,  some 
one  fly  which  later  on  you  have  given  up,  and  which 
now  is  rarely  used  and  lightly  valued.  Even  now 
looking  at  one's  fishing-books,  one  sees  that  for  long 
periods,  or  even  for  a  whole  season,  one  fly  has  been 
by  far  the  most  successful.  Then  another  old 
favourite  has  a  lucky  turn,  and  for  weeks  together 
nearly  everything  is  caught  upon  that  pattern, 
and  for  the  same  reason  as  before,  namely,  that 
you  have  given  it  the  first  trial  every  day,  and 
have  never  changed  it  for  another  unless  the  fish 
were  not  taking.1 

I  should  advise  you  not  to  pay  overmuch 
attention  to  the  maxims  current  among  salmon 
fishers  as  to  what  fly  you  should  use  or  what  you 
should  do  in  this  event  or  in  that.  For  instance, 
you  will  be  told,  '  Always  use  big  flies  in  spring, 
small  flies  in  summer  and  autumn ' ;  '  Never  cast 
again  over  a  risen  or  pricked  fish  until  you  have 
given  him  five  minutes'  rest/  or  '  have  smoked  a 
pipe,'  or  '  have  changed  your  fly  for  a  smaller  one,' 
or  what  not ;  '  Always  use  bright  flies  on  a  bright 
day,  dark  flies  on  a  dark  day,'  and  so  on.  Now 

1  I  see  that  in  the  season  of  1897  all  my  salmon  were  caught  on 
four  flies  only  ;  Jock  Scott,  claret,  white  and  silver,  and  Gipps. 


FISHING  MAXIMS  39 

these  maxims,  and  many  more  like  them,  are  all 
very  well.  They  are  well  known  and  deeply 
revered  amongst  anglers,  but  I  often  wonder 
whether  the  poor  misguided  salmon  is  always 
quite  sure  of  the  path  of  duty  thus  laid  down  for 
him.  They  remind  me  of  the  story  of  the  French 
visitor  who  showed  some  alarm  at  the  prospect  of 
passing  a  savage-looking  dog  that  stood  in  the 
way,  barking  furiously.  '  It  's  all  right/  said  his 
host ;  '  don't  you  know  the  proverb  "  Barking  dogs 
don't  bite  "  ?  '  '  Ah,  yes  !  '  says  the  Frenchman, 
'  I  know  ze  proverbe,  and  you  know  ze  proverbe, 
but  ze  question  is  does  ze  dog  know  ze  proverbe  ?  ' 
Such  maxims  may  be  good  rough  working  rules, 
but  one  thing  you  may  be  sure  of  about  a  salmon, 
you  never  can  tell  either  what  he  will  do,  or  when 
he  will  do  it,  and  if  the  fish  doesn't  come  when 
invited  in  what  you  consider  the  orthodox  manner, 
don't  give  him  up,  but  try  him  in  the  most  un- 
orthodox way  that  you  can  think  of,  and  I  should 
suggest,  to  begin  with,  an  absurdly  small  fly  and 
fine  tackle,  and  keep  your  very  small  flies,  unless 
they  have  metal  eyes,  ready  on  a  strand  of  gut, 
carefully  tied  before  you  go  out,  so  that  they 
may  be  well  tied  on  and  changed  the  more 
easily. 


STRIKING  THE   FISH 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — All  kinds  of  views  are  held  as  to 
the  necessity  or  otherwise  of  striking,  that  is  to 
say,  of  intentionally  jerking  the  rod  so  that  the 
point  and  barb  of  the  hook  may  be  buried  in  the 
fish's  jaw. 

One  school  of  fishers  holds  that  you  must  never 
strike  when  salmon  fishing,  that  the  salmon  hooks 
himself.  Another,  that  you  should  always  strike 
'  from  the  reel,'  as  they  express  it ;  that  is  to  say, 
leaving  the  line  loose  and  free  to  run  off  the  reel 
as  you  strike.  Others  hold  that  you  should 
always  strike  a  salmon  just  as  you  would  strike 
in  trout  fishing,  although  not  so  quickly. 

These  differences,  like  so  many  other  of  our 
disputes,  exist  to  a  large  extent  upon  confusion  of 
terms.  The  disputants  are  often  referring  to 
different  methods  of  fishing,  and  they  mean  differ- 
ent things  by  the  word  '  strike.'  The  man  who 
fishes  deep  with  his  rod  almost  horizontal,  and  so 
with  the  point  low,  will  rarely  see  the  fish  rise. 
His  first  knowledge  of  the  fish  is  the  pull  on  the 
line,  and  if  he  has  had  the  skill  to  keep  a  good  taut 
line,  nothing  more  will  be  needed  to  drive  his  hook 
home  than  simply  to  raise  the  rod  point.  This 


40 


WHEN  FISHING  DEEP  41 

should  be  done  quickly,  but  anything  like  a  jerk 
would,  in  a  strong  water,  probably  result  in  the 
fisher  breaking  the  gut  and  leaving  his  fly  in  the 
fish's  mouth.  The  effect  of  a  sudden  jerk  upward 
given  to  a  heavy  salmon  rod  held  almost  horizontal 
is  to  pull  up  the  butt,  but  at  first  to  depress  the 
rod  point,  which  then  flies  up,  putting  on  a  far 
greater  strain  than  the  excited  fisher  either 
intends  or  realises.  You,  my  boys,  will  strike 
thus  with  a  violent  jerk  often  enough,  and  will 
lose  your  fly  many  times  before  your  nerves  are 
always  steady  when  they  feel  the  savage  snatch  of 
an  unexpected  salmon. 

By  the  prompt,  firm  raising  of  the  rod  point  the 
fisher  in  this  style  has  struck  sufficiently  ;  he  has 
driven  the  hook  home  into  the  struggling  fish, 
and  he  needs  no  sharp  stroke  like  that  given  by  the 
trout  fisher  with  his  quick  turn  of  the  wrist.  But 
on  the  few  occasions  when  the  young  angler  in 
this  style  does  actually  see  the  great  boil  of  a 
rising  salmon,  he  will  generally  strike  instinctively 
and — as  I  have  both  seen  and  done — will  very 
often  strike  too  soon. 

The  man,  on  the  other  hand,  who  fishes  with  rod 
point  raised  and  fly  near  the  surface  as  in  trouting 
(a  very  good  way,  too,  in  clear  water),  will  constantly 
see  the  rise  ;  see  the  salmon  like  a  great  trout 
boiling  up  at  his  fly,  and  indeed  he  will  often  see 
the  wave  caused  by  the  fish  coming  to  or  following 
his  fly.  In  order  to  drive  the  hook  home  when 
fishing  thus,  with  rod-top  raised,  a  sharp,  quick 


42  STRIKING  THE  FISH 

stroke  is  needed  owing  to  the  strain  falling  upon 
the  thin  and  yielding  top  of  the  rodc  But  the 
beginner  in  this  style  will  very  quickly  find  that 
if  he  strikes  the  moment  that  he  sees  the  boil,  he 
will  often  fail  to  hook  the  fish,  or  even  to  feel  any 
touch  at  all.  If,  however,  he  waits  until  the  fish 
has  begun  to  go  down  again,  he  will  very  rarely 
fail  to  strike  the  hook  in  firmly.  He  should  wait 
perhaps  two  seconds.  The  best  idea  that  I  can 
give  you  of  the  time  is  this.  You  see  the  boil  and 
then  you  count  quietly,  one — two — strike.  The 
fish  appears  to  be  then  about  two  feet  below  the 
surface,  as  you  can  often  judge  by  the  gut,  as  your 
strike  lifts  it  partly  out  of  the  water.  You  will 
very  rarely  fail  to  hook  him  if  he  has  ever  touched 
the  fly.  But  in  swift  water,  and  more  especially  in 
quick,  glassy  runs,  the  fish  seem  to  take  the  fly  more 
firmly,  and  you  can  safely  strike  more  quickly. 

The  course  that  you,  my  boys,  should  take,  until 
you  see  reason  to  think  that  you  know  a  better 
one,  is  this  : — 

When  fishing  deep,  in  strong  water,  the  moment 
you  feel  the  pull,  tighten  firmly  on  the  fish.  If  in 
rather  slow  water,  give  a  much  sharper  pull, 
especially  if  the  hook  is  a  large  one. 

If  fishing  in  low  water — or  indeed  in  any  but  the 
swiftest  water — with  the  fly  kept  near  the  surface, 
then,  when  you  see  the  rise,  count '  one — two,'  and 
then  (at '  three  ')  strike  sharply.  But  if  your  first 
knowledge  of  the  rise  is  a  pull,  or  a  stopping  of  the 
line,  then  strike  instantly. 


LARGE  HOOKS  43 

In  all  cases,  even  when  fishing  deep,  if  the  fish 
takes  the  fly  after  the  top  is  raised  in  order  to  make 
the  backward  cast,  then  strike  sharply  on  the 
touch. 

When  fishing  with  large  hooks  or  with  double 
hooks  it  is  advisable,  unless  the  fly  has  been  taken 
savagely  with  a  violent  pull,  to  make  sure  that  a 
marked  and  heavy  pull  is  given  to  the  fly  as  soon 
as  possible  after  you  have  felt  the  fish.  This  is 
in  order  to  ensure  driving  the  hooks  home.  A 
few  trials  with  a  fly  placed  in  the  mouth  of  a  dead 
salmon  freshly  caught  will  soon  convince  you  that 
a  good  deal  of  force  is  required  to  drive  a  large 
hook  into  the  firmer  parts  of  the  jaw  even  if  the 
gut  be  held  near  the  fly.  Still  more  is  it  so  if  about 
twenty-five  yards  of  line  is  let  out  and  the  effect 
of  a  pull  made  with  the  rod  is  tested  upon  the  dead 
fish's  mouth.  It  will  be  found  that  often  the  barb 
has  not  been  buried  in  the  fish,  and  if  alive  and 
thrashing  about  with  open  mouth,  he  very  probably 
would  have  twisted  out  the  point  and  would  have 
escaped. 

That  fish,  in  the  effort  to  get  rid  of  the  fly  in  their 
mouths,  do — as  one  would  expect — struggle  and 
twist  about  with  mouth  wide  open,  I  have  myself 
seen  several  times  when  a  bright  sun  shining  into  a 
clear  water  below  a  high  bank  has  enabled  the 
early  struggles  of  the  hooked  fish  to  be  seen  with 
great  distinctness. 

In  experimenting  with  a  dead  fish  one  curious 
thing  will  be  noticed.  The  fly,  if  hooked  into  the 


44  STRIKING  THE  FISH 

tongue — the  very  thing  which  one  would  expect 
the  downward-hanging  hook  to  pierce — will  rather 
easily  tear  out,  splitting  the  tongue  as  it  does  so. 
No  doubt  it  is  for  this  reason  that  one  so  rarely 
lands  a  fish  hooked  in  the  tongue.  I  never 
remember  doing  so  on  a  salmon  rod  unless  the 
hook  has  been  fixed  right  at  the  root  or  back  of  the 
tongue.  This  splitting  of  the  tongue  probably 
explains  some  of  those  vexatious  losses  of  fish 
apparently  well  hooked,  which  nevertheless  escape, 
after  a  few  violent  struggles. 

Another  thing  that  you  must  remember,  my 
boys,  is  this  :  Never  use  a  blunt  hook.  Always 
keep  in  your  pocket  or  in  your  fly-case  a  small 
slip  of  hard  whetstone  to  keep  the  point  of  your 
hooks  as  keen  as  it  is  possible  to  have  them.  The 
skin  within  a  salmon's  mouth  is  smooth  and 
slippery,  and  the  hook  should  have  a  needle  point. 

I  advise  you  not  to  practise  striking  from  the 
reel  unless  you  find  your  nerves  so  '  jumpy  '  that 
you  cannot  trust  yourself  to  hold  the  line.  But 
you  should  so  hold  the  line  that  as  soon  as  the  pull 
or  strike  is  over,  or  even  before,  if  the  fish  should 
give  a  sudden  savage  snatch,  the  line  may  be 
taken  off  the  reel.  And  that  is  done  by  holding 
one  or — when  you  are  more  experienced  and  hold 
the  rod  as  I  do — both  forefingers  over  the  line  in 
the  following  way.  You  grasp  the  rod  firmly  as 
if  to  cast,  leaving  the  line  quite  free.  Then 
detach  the  forefinger  and  hook  it  over  the  line, 
closing  it  again  beside  the  other  fingers  closely 


HARLING  45 

upon  the  rod,  so  that  now  the  line  goes  under  the 
forefinger  and  over  the  three  others.  Then  on  a 
sudden  or  heavy  pull  the  line  will  easily  and 
instinctively  be  allowed  to  lift  the  forefinger  and 
thus  permit  the  reel  to  run.  Never  under  any 
circumstances  have  the  line  twisted  round  a  finger 
— unless  you  want  it  broken. 

I  believe  that  both  in  harling  and  in  trolling  for 
salmon  it  is  the  practice  to  strike  violently  on 
awaking  to  the  discovery  that  a  fish  has  at  last 
come  to  break  the  peaceful  monotony  of  those  cold 
and  dreary  pursuits. 


VI 

ON   PLAYING   A   SALMON 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — I  want  to  give  you  some  advice 
on  the  playing  of  a  salmon  when  you  have  hooked 
him,  and  there  are  several  points  that  you  must  be 
careful  to  attend  to. 

Hold  the  rod  up. — This,  above  all  other  things,  is 
what  you  must  remember  to  do.  From  the  moment 
after  the  fish  is  hooked  until  the  moment  he  is 
gaffed  you  should  never,  unless  the  fish  is  in  the 
act  of  leaping  out  of  the  water,  cease  to  hold  the 
rod  well  up,  the  butt  at  or  near  the  perpendicular. 
For  when  the  rod  is  lowered  towards  the  fish  the 
lightness  of  play  of  the  top  joints  is  gone,  and  the 
gut  is  very  apt  to  be  broken.  A  much  shorter 
yielding  on  the  part  of  the  fish  permits  the  top  to 
straighten  and  releases  the  pull  of  the  rod  alto- 
gether, whilst  a  very  short  rush  passes  from  the 
stage  where  the  rod  is  exerting  no  strain  at  all  to 
the  point  where  the  pull,  coming  mainly  upon  the 
butt  and  middle  joints,  is  the  very  heaviest  that 
the  rod  can  give. 

Next,  watch  the  fish  most  carefully. — If  you  see 
him  leap  out  of  the  water,  drop  your  point  in- 
stantly, and  raise  it  as  soon  as  he  has  fallen  into  the 
water  again.  I  was  inclined,  once,  to  neglect  this 


46 


NEVER  LET  HIM  REST  47 

traditional  piece  of  advice  as  unnecessary,  but  paid 
the  penalty  in  several  broken  hooks  and  lost  fish, 
and  soon  returned  to  it  again.  If  you  feel  a  sudden 
quick  rush,  look  out  for  a  leap  to  follow  it. 

Never  let  the  fish  rest. — When  the  fish  is  rushing 
about  and  fighting  hard,  put  no  strain  on  it,  but 
keep  the  line  taut,  and  keep  as  near  as  possible  to 
your  fish.     Always,  too,  keep  the  line  well  reeled 
up  so  as  to  have  as  little  line  dragging  in  the  water 
as  possible.     When  he  makes  a  rush,  let  him  go — 
even  give  him  line  pulled  off  the  reel  by  your  hand. 
But  the  very  moment  he  slackens  his  efforts,  pull 
him  and  worry  him  into  action,  and  in  a  very  short 
time  he  will  be  yours.     Of  the  many  hundreds  of 
fish  that  I  have  caught  I  have  never  had  one  fish 
sulk,  and  this  I  believe  to  be  due  almost  entirely 
to  a  habit  of  never  allowing  the  fish  to  rest  until 
the  fight  is  done.     When  the  tired  fish  attempts 
a  run  you  may  easily  turn  him  by  putting  the 
rod  down-stream  and  holding  it  low,   and  thus 
pulling  his  head  from  the  down-stream  side,  when 
he  will  almost  always  circle  round  and  come  nearer 
to  the  fisherman,  and  will  very  soon  lose  his  courage 
at  such  treatment.     By  this  particular  manoeuvre 
you  can  bring  in  a  slow,  sluggish  fish  in  very 
quick  time.     In  the  old  days  when  men  caught 
salmon  on  the  '  loop '  rod,  without  a  reel,  they  used 
to  make  a  great  point  of  keeping  rather  below  the 
fish,  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  that  is  the  most 
advantageous  place  for  the  angler.    As  I  have  said, 
you  should  do  everything  you  can  to  keep  near  the 


48  ON  PLAYING  A  SALMON 

fish  and  to  prevent  him  having  a  very  long  line 
out  if  it  can  be  helped.  But  at  the  same  time  you 
must  take  care  not  to  have  him  on  a  very  short  line 
until  he  is  ready  to  come  to  the  gaff.  If  he  is 
within  anything  like  a  rod's  length  of  the  top  ring, 
he  is  too  close.  If  he  is  swimming  deep,  this  does 
not  matter,  but  to  have  a  fish  reeled  up  close  that 
is  splashing  and  struggling  near  the  surface  is  to 
invite  a  break  and  to  deserve  one.  Similarly,  when 
the  fish  is  tired  and  you  have  to  reel  him  up  short 
in  order  to  use  the  gaff  or  net,  never  hold  his  head 
out  of  the  water.  Never  let  the  rod  point  be 
directly  above  the  fish  to  be  lifting  him  out  of  the 
water,  but  keep  it  either  down-stream  or  up- 
stream of  the  fish,  so  that  the  pull  of  the  gut  is  not 
a  lifting  pull.  If  the  fish  is  being  lifted,  and  he 
begins  to  kick  and  splash,  as  he  will  do — to  jigger, 
as  it  is  called — the  jerking  on  the  line  is  very 
sudden,  and  constantly  snaps  either  the  line,  the 
hook,  or  else  the  hold  that  the  hook  had  in  the  fish. 
Enormous  numbers  of  grilse  and  small,  active 
salmon  are  lost  in  this  way  every  season.  If  you 
hook  a  very  active  fish  on  fine  tackle  when  fishing 
with  a  big  rod,  his  wild  leaps  and  rushes  will  make 
you  tremble  for  the  safety  of  your  gut,  especially 
if  the  fish  takes  a  lot  of  line.  A  great  deal  may  be 
done  to  ease  the  strain  by  keeping  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  fish,  even  by  wading  into  the  water 
again,  and  holding  the  rod  very  high  and  very  close 
to  the  butt  with  both  hands.  I  have  caught  large 
salmon  on  an  eighteen-foot-six  rod  with  a  cast 


LOST  FISH  49 

tipped  with  three  feet  of  plain  trout  gut,  but  then, 
when  using  such  gut,  I  put  the  button  of  the  rod  in 
one  palm  and  hold  the  rod  close  above  the  reel  with 
my  other  hand,  playing  the  fish  almost  entirely 
upon  the  top  joint,  and  if  the  trout  gut  is  sound 
the  rod  will  manage  it  perfectly. 

If  you  do  hook  a  big  fish  he  may  take  hours 
to  land  if  you  don't  worry  him  enough.  But  if 
you  have  to  leave  him,  don't  cut  your  line ;  put 
down  your  rod  and  haul  him  in  by  hand.  Some 
monks  who  have  a  house  on  Loch  Ness  have  a 
stuffed  salmon  that  they  netted  in  1907  which 
weighed  37^  Ibs.  In  his  mouth  was  a  minnow 
attached  to  over  thirty  yards  of  line,  and  on 
inquiry  they  heard  that,  a  few  days  before,  an 
old  gentleman  had  hooked  this  fish  and  played 
it  for  several  hours,  and  then,  cold  and  tired 
out,  had  cut  his  line  and  gone  home.  Some  of 
the  lost  fish  really  are  big,  you  see. 

A  still  more  grievous  loss  happened  to  a  dis- 
tinguished barrister  now  in  a  high  official  position. 
Fishing  one  afternoon  in  the  Forde  River  in 
Norway  he  hooked  a  great  salmon,  and  twice  he 
had  the  fish  almost  within  reach  of  the  gaff. 
Twice  the  gaffer  went  out,  and  with  a  longer 
gaff  would  probably  have  got  him.  As  it  was, 
he  just  failed  to  reach  the  fish,  and  it  never  again 
allowed  itself  to  be  brought  near  the  shore.  The 
rod  was  a  light  one  and  the  tackle  fine,  and  the 
fight  lasted  for  six  mortal  hours,  but  at  last  in 
the  darkness  the  gut  was  broken  by  the  weight 

D 


50  ON  PLAYING  A  SALMON 

of  the  exhausted  fish  swept  down  by  the  strong 
stream,  and  half  a  mile  below  where  he  was 
hooked.  The  next  day  the  angler  went  home, 
and  the  day  after  that  the  Norwegian  boatmen 
netted  the  pool  where  he  had  been  hooked,  and 
there  caught  the  fish.  It  weighed  over  fifty 
pounds  and  still  carried  the  fly,  which  they 
returned  to  its  owner. 

When  wading,  if  you  hook  a  fish,  do  not,  as  a  rule, 
begin  to  move  towards  the  shore  until  the  fish  has 
had  his  first  few  plunges  and  begins  to  steady 
himself.  But  if  he  begins  to  tear  off  line  and  gets 
far  away  from  you,  go  after  him  as  promptly  as 
you  can.  Never  let  him  have  a  long  line  out  if 
that  can  be  avoided. 

After  playing  should  come  gaffing,  but  fish 
without  number  are  lost  every  year  in  the  attempt 
to  gaff  them.  An  inexplicable  nervousness  attacks 
the  beginner,  he  approaches  the  fish  quietly  and 
confidently,  but  then  he  bungles  the  job  most 
horribly,  and  in  a  moment  he  is  making  wild 
rakes  at  the  fish  which  often  end  in  his  gaffing 
the  line  and  losing  the  salmon  on  the  spot.  The 
only  good  advice  I  can  give  you  is  this :  Keep 
the  point  of  the  gaff  sharp  as  a  needle.  Quietly 
stretch  it  over  the  middle  of  the  back  of  your 
salmon,  and  touch  his  farther  side  with  the  point : 
then  give  a  firm  pull — not  a  wild  jerk — and 
instantly  draw  him  in,  lifting  the  handle  of  your 
gaff  as  you  do  it,  so  that  the  fish  hangs  per- 
pendicularly below  it.  As  you  gaff  him,  drop 


GAFFING  51 

your  rod  forward  so  as  to  slacken  the  gut  to  the 
fish's  head,  or  he  may  break  the  cast  or  the 
rod  top.  Don't  be  flurried,  and  the  thing  can 
hardly  go  wrong.  When  gaffing  for  a  friend, 
keep  still  while  he  brings  the  fish  to  a  position 
where  the  stroke  is  a  certainty ;  take  no  risks, 
and  when  you  gaff,  do  it  quietly. 

Andrew  Young,  in  his  Angler's  Guide  to  the 
Rivers  and  Lochs  of  the  North  of  Scotland  (published 
in  1857),  besides  describing  minutely  all  the 
principal  rivers  and  lakes,  has  some  delightful 
advice  to  give  as  to  the  best  methods  of  fishing, 
and  his  advice,  or  at  any  rate  some  of  his  advice, 
shows  that  we  have  learnt  very  little  that  is  new 
since  his  day. 

'  I  could  easily,'  he  says,  '  give  a  list  of  the  flies 
likely  to  kill  on  these  rivers ;  but  of  what  use 
would  it  be,  when  we  don't  see  two  on  the  same 
river  use  the  same  kind  of  flies  ?  The  fact  is  that 
the  fly  that  killed  the  last  fish  is  always  considered 
best,  whatever  be  its  shape,  size  or  colour,  until 
some  one  supersedes  it  with  another. 

'  But  I  would  seriously  warn  anglers  against 
"  striking  the  fish,"  and  "  pulling  hard."  Striking 
the  fish  means  giving  the  rod  a  sudden  upward 
jerk,  as  soon  as  the  fish  breaks  the  water  to  catch 
the  fly.  This  is  a  vile  practice  that  has  crept  in 
among  anglers  of  late  years.' 

Old  Andrew,  you  see,  like  many  other  arguers, 
begins  by  stating  the  '  vile  practice  '  out  of  court. 
In  salmon  fishing  no  one  could  defend  striking  '  as 


52  ON  PLAYING  A  SALMON 

soon  as  the  fish  breaks  the  water.'  Striking  at  a 
rise  that  you  see,  but  after  waiting  a  couple  of 
seconds  to  allow  the  fish  to  turn  with  the  fly,  is  a 
very  different  matter.  He  goes  on  : — 

'  And  when  the  fish  is  hooked  be  sure  that  you 
don't  pull  hard,  for  that  is  a  most  dangerous 
practice,  by  which  many  a  hook  and  many  a  fish  is 
lost.  .  .  . 

1  There  is  some  excuse  for  a  young  angler  losing 
his  first  fish  in  that  manner  from  agitation,  and 
want  of  the  proper  weight  of  his  hand  ;  but  when 
anglers  of  twenty  years'  standing,  who  are  con- 
sidered first-rate  casters  and  hookers  of  fish,  play 
the  fool  in  that  way,  they  are  inexcusable.  I  have 
known  one  good  caster  and  hooker  in  one  month 
lose  ninety  fish,  all  of  which  were  hooked  so  well 
that  at  least  eighty  would  have  been  landed  by 
any  cautious  fisher.'  Great  heavens,  one  thinks, 
how  many  fish  were  landed  in  that  month  by  this 
furious  Jehu  of  the  salmon  rod.  But  he  goes  on  : 
'  I  never  like  to  hear  of  this  foolish  brag  of  having 
landed  an  eighteen-pound  fish  in  ten  minutes,  and 
an  eight-pound  grilse  in  five  minutes — that 's  the 
work  of  a  butcher  and  not  of  an  angler  ;  for  giving 
a  fish  fair  play,  and  an  angler  fair  sport,  from 
thirty  to  thirty-five  minutes  is  little  enough  time 
to  play  a  fish  of  eighteen  pounds.  Some  may  take 
more,  but  few  less,  with  fair  play,  and  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  minutes  for  a  grilse.' 

Again,  '  We  would  also  warn  the  young  angler 
against  endeavouring  to  cast  a  long  line,  for  that 


ANDREW  YOUNG  53 

is  a  besetting  fault  in  new  beginners.  They  see  a 
long-practised  hand  spin  the  fly  almost  across  the 
river,  and  they  think  that  doing  the  same  would 
constitute  them  anglers  all  at  once.  But  in  that 
they  are  grossly  mistaken  ;  for  with  a  long  slack 
line  fish  can  never  be  hooked,  for  the  current 
forces  the  unbent  middle  of  the  line  down  the 
stream,  dragging  the  fly  down  after  it,  and  en- 
tirely preventing  the  proper  working  of  the 
line/ 

It  is  curious  to  see  that  already  in  1857  he  can 
recommend  playing  the  fly  a  little  as  it  hangs  after 
coming  out  of  the  current,  and  can  also  say  that 
'  Some  are  in  the  habit  of  commencing  near  the 
lower  end  of  the  pool  and  fishing  backwards 
against  the  stream.'  Quite  lately  we  have  heard 
this  method  extolled,  and  proclaimed  as  a  wonder- 
ful new-found  Halliday.  I  believe  that  it  is 
quite  a  sensible  experiment  to  make  on  a  hopeless 
day,  but  Andrew  viewed  it — very  justly — as 
'  a  reprehensible  practice,  for  it  exhibits  the 
splash  of  the  line  to  the  fish  when  they  should  only 
see  the  fly.'  He  insists  most  vigorously  that  the 
only  proper  way  to  fish  a  salmon  pool  is  '  to 
remove  never  more  than  a  yard  at  one  time, 
always  giving  three  offers  of  the  fly  at  each 
removal/  If  you  raise  no  fish  he  tells  you  to 
'  rest  ten  minutes,  change  your  fly  for  one  of  a 
quite  opposite  colour,  and  fish  over  the  pool  a 
second  time  with  the  same  care/  '  Some  anglers/ 
he  says,  after  an  exhortation  against  haste,  '  run 

D2 


54  ON  PLAYING  A  SALMON 

over  the  best  pools  with  only  a  few  casts  and  then 
declare  that  there  are  no  fish  in  the  pool ;  but  the 
patient  angler  finds  fish  there  as  soon  as  Mr. 
Short-Temper  leaves  it.' 

His  '  concluding  advice  to  the  young  angler  '  is 
quite  delightful.  After  telling  him  to  be  sure  at 
night  to  dry  his  flies  and  his  line,  and  to  examine 
both  line  and  gut  carefully,  he  adds  this  :  '  Send 
the  gilly  early  to  bed,  and  be  sure  not  to  drink  that 
stuff  that  they  compound  of  whisky,  sugar,  and 
boiling  water.  It  is  bad  for  muddling  the  brain, 
and  angling  requires  a  clear  brain.' 

You  will  see  that  Andrew  and  I  do  not  see  eye 
to  eye  on  a  good  many  points.  He  is  horrified  at 
the  very  thought  of  killing  a  fish  quickly,  although 
that  is  not  done  by  '  pulling  hard,'  but  by  never 
allowing  the  fish  to  take  a  moment's  rest. 


VII 

THE   SENSE   OF   PAIN  IN   FISH 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — You  will  often  hear  fishermen 
debating  the  question  whether  fish  feel  pain.  It 
is  not  that  anybody,  so  far  as  I  know,  thinks  that 
fish  are  wholly  proof  against  the  feeling  of  pain, 
but  many  people  believe  that  fish  are  much  less 
sensible  of  pain  than  are  warm-blooded  animals 
such  as  we  are.  Seeing  a  long  and  frantic  struggle 
for  life  on  the  part  of  a  beautiful  creature  which 
has  never  given  the  smallest  cause  of  offence  to 
mankind,  a  humane  fisher  is  forced  to  consider 
whether  he  is  being  guilty  of  wanton  cruelty  ; 
whether,  if  he  must  take  fish  in  order  to  eat  them, 
he  is  justified  in  taking  them  with  the  rod,  instead 
of  by  some  means  that  is  either  painless — such  as 
stunning  them  by  the  use  of  dynamite  or  shooting 
them — or  whereby  death  at  least  is  quickly  over, 
such  as  spearing  them  or  taking  them  with  a  draft 
net.  No  doubt  the  'angler  puts  himself  upon  his 
trial  with  every  intention  of  securing  his  own  ac- 
quittal if  it  be  possible.  But  is  he  really  guilty  ? 
The  very  thought  of  using,  against  a  salmon, 
such  devices  as  dynamite,  nets,  traps,  or  spears, 
is  revolting  to  a  man  who  loves,  or  perhaps  thinks 
that  he  loves,  the  salmon,  and  who  feels  angry  and 


55 


56  THE  SENSE  OF  PAIN  IN  FISH 

disgusted  every  time  that  he  sees  one  of  those 
pictures  of  their  wholesale  slaughter  in  such  places 
as  the  salmon  canneries  of  British  Columbia. 
Why  ?  Is  it  merely  a  selfish  desire  to  capture  the 
fish  ourselves,  or  is  it  that  we  feel  that  a  noble  fish, 
even  when  we  need  him  for  food,  should  have  the 
much  greater  chance  of  escape  that  the  rod  gives 
him  as  compared  with  the  murderous  bars  of  the 
salmon  trap  or  the  toils  of  the  deadly  net  ?  It  is 
not  merely  that  the  rod  gives  him  a  fair  chance  of 
escape  after  he  has  been  hooked  ;  it  does  not,  like 
the  net  or  the  fish  trap,  sweep  the  fish  off  wholesale 
from  the  pools  or  from  the  narrows  through  which 
they  are  compelled  to  pass.  The  rod  can  take  only 
such  fish  as  are  disposed  to  seize  the  fly  or  bait,  and 
we  all  know  that  at  times  such  fish  are  rare  indeed, 
and  at  no  time  do  they  form,  I  believe,  any  large 
proportion  of  the  fish  present  in  the  pools. 

Anglers  are  not,  as  a  rule,  men  given  to  cruelty 
in  the  affairs  of  life,  and  yet  the  fear  of  possible 
cruelty  in  fishing  does  not  impress  them  as  a  real 
one.  Some  cruelty  must  be  involved  in  causing 
the  death  of  any  creature,  and  so  long  as  humane 
men  and  women  desire  to  eat  slaughtered  sheep, 
cattle,  poultry,  game,  and  fish,  the  angler  need  not 
much  concern  himself  beyond  proving  that  his 
sport  involves  no  greater  cruelty  than  this.  A 
great  accumulation  of  instances  in  which  fish  seem 
to  have  shown  an  almost  complete  indifference  to 
wounds  or  injuries  that  would  cause  extreme  agony 
to  warm-blooded  animals,  seems  to  establish  as  a 


ACTUAL  INSTANCES  57 

fact  that  fish  are  comparatively  insensible  to 
pain. 

I  have  myself  hooked  a  fine  spring  salmon  of 
about  18  Ibs.,  which,  after  taking  the  fly  with  a 
firm  pull,  merely  sank  with  it  to  the  bottom  of 
the  river,  and  gave  no  sign  of  feeling  anything 
unusual.  As  I  was  wading  in  deep  and  difficult 
water,  the  first  thing  was  to  get  into  the  shallows 
and  shorten  the  line,  and  then  I  gave  a  good  sharp 
pull  at  the  fish.  Nothing  happened.  I  gave 
another  and  a  more  severe  pull,  now  almost 
doubting  whether  the  fish  was  still  on,  or  whether 
by  any  chance  it  had  left  the  fly  in  some  new  and 
uncharted  snag.  That  doubt  did  not  last  long. 
At  the  third  pull  the  fish  bolted  past  me  up  the 
deep  stream,  then  turned  and  dashed  slanting 
across  to  the  far  side  of  the  river,  repeatedly  rising 
to  the  surface  and  wallowing  along  half  out  of  the 
water  at  every  few  yards.  Off  ran  the  forty  yards 
of  casting  line,  but  still  the  fish  held  on  for  some 
rocky  shallows,  whilst  the  thin  silk  backing  cut 
the  forefinger  that  was  trying  to  check  it.  He 
won.  No  sooner  did  he  get  amongst  the  boulders 
than  he  got  the  line  round  one  of  them,  and,  with  a 
few  splashing  plunges,  he  broke  me  and  departed. 
Luckily  the  line  came  free,  and  with  it  came  back 
the  large  claret  fly  that  he  had  taken,  but  with  the 
hook  now  snapped  off  just  at  the  tail  of  the  fly. 
It  must  have  gone  firmly  into  some  pretty  tough 
spot  to  break  at  such  a  place. 

From  his  behaviour  it  is  hard  to  think  that  this 


58  THE  SENSE  OF  PAIN  IN  FISH 

fish  felt  much  pain  from  the  hook,  and  his  vigorous 
and  effective  line  of  action  after  the  third  pull 
was  given  to  him  may  have  been  due  quite  as 
much  to  realising  that  some  fisher  had  got  hold  of 
him,  as  to  any  feeling  of  pain  from  the  extra  pull 
at  the  hook,  when  he  had  shown  none  at  the  first 
or  the  second  pull. 

A  similar  thing  happened  to  me  on  September 
30,  1905,  when  fishing  with  a  phantom  minnow 
on  a  falling  flood  in  a  heavy  black  water  with  a 
good  deal  of  mud  still  in  it.  On  the  shallow  edge 
at  the  far  side  of  some  very  heavy  water  I  hooked 
what  I  felt  sure  was  a  good  fish.  I  thought  that  I 
had  felt  the  quiver  of  life,  but  a  full  minute's 
tugging  convinced  me  that  I  must  have  been 
mistaken,  and  I  had  actually  taken  the  line  in  my 
hand  to  drag  the  hooks  off  the  bottom  or  to  break 
away,  when  the  line  calmly  moved  off  into  deep 
water.  This  time  also,  as  luck  would  have  it, 
I  lost  the  fish,  as  he  succeeded  about  ten  minutes 
later  in  getting  round  a  point  some  distance  below, 
where  it  was  not  possible  to  follow  him.  But  he 
was  a  strong  one,  and  he  was  a  very  heavy  one. 

Another  instance  I  know  of,  which  happened  to 
an  angler  who  was  fishing  some  water  below  me. 
He  hooked  a  fish  which  went  straightway  back  to 
his  lying-place  on  the  bottom  and  sulked  there  for 
an  hour  before  he  could  be  induced  to  move. 
Then,  in  due  time,  he  was  landed  and  was  found 
to  weigh  28  Ibs.  He  was  hooked  in  the  point 
of  the  lower  jaw.  One  cannot  imagine  any  warm- 


SALMON  TAKING  WASP  59 

blooded  animal,  hooked  in  the  nose  or  mouth  or 
ear  or  in  any  other  place,  however  gristly,  which 
could  without  a  single  preliminary  struggle  calmly 
stay  where  he  was  and  allow  his  captor  to  tug  and 
pull  at  him  to  his  heart's  content.  One  would 
suppose  that '  sulking  '  would  be  almost  impossible 
if  the  salmon  felt  acute  pain  from  the  repeated 
tugging  at  the  hook.  Yet  fish  do  sulk  often 
enough — although,  in  fact,  it  has  never  happened 
to  me  to  have  one  do  so.  And  people  who,  in 
clear  water,  have  been  able  to  see  the  sulking  fish, 
say  that  he  may  be  seen  poised  head  downwards, 
with  his  nose  on  the  gravel  and  his  tail  gently 
waving  to  keep  him  down  against  the  pull  of  the 
rod.  Such  conduct  does  not  suggest  any  acute 
pain. 

One  knows,  too,  that  a  salmon  will  frequently 
take  a  fly  several  times,  and  sometimes  even  after 
he  has  had  a  very  sharp  prick.  Once  in  the  month 
of  August  1890  I  was  fishing  a  quiet  glassy  pool, 
bent  on  catching  a  large  fish  weighing,  as  I  judged, 
close  on  30  Ibs.,  that  I  had  seen  and  tried  so  often 
that  I  knew  his  position  almost  to  a  yard.  The 
river  was  low  and  clear,  and  I  had  to  wade  out 
with  great  care  to  avoid  making  a  ripple.  Just 
as  I  got  to  the  place  from  which  I  had  hoped  to 
cover  him,  I  saw  a  wasp  fall  into  the  river  and  go 
drifting  down,  buzzing  upon  the  surface  of  the 
water  straight  over  the  salmon.  As  I  watched  it 
in  the  bright  sunshine,  a  big  shoulder  rose  quietly 
out  of  the  water,  followed  by  a  black  tail,  and  down 


60  THE  SENSE  OF  PAIN  IN  FISH 

went  my  friend  the  wasp,  and  he  certainly  did  not 
come  to  the  surface  again.  Thereupon  I  changed 
my  tiny  silver  fly  for  a  small  black  and  orange  fly 
with  dun  turkey  wings  known  as  a  '  Gipps/  and 
with  it  at  once  hooked  my  friend.  Now  that  fish 
had  no  fear  of  a  wasp.  Of  course  he  may  have 
crushed  it  instantly  in  his  jaws,  but  it  is  an 
experiment  that  no  warm-blooded  animal  cares 
to  try  twice,  although  every  puppy  has  generally 
tried  it  once.  And  wasps  are  abundant  by  the 
river-side  in  August,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  this 
was  the  first  that  my  friend  had  ever  taken.  I 
wish  I  had  been  able  to  cut  him  open  and  so  per- 
haps prove  that  he  had  swallowed  this  wasp,  but 
I  did  not  succeed  in  landing  him. 

I  have  only  once  taken  a  salmon  that  had  any 
tackle  upon  him  ;  and  then  it  was  merely  some 
trout  fisher's  March  brown,  with  a  foot  of  gut 
attached  to  it  and  left  in  the  mouth  of  a  i5~lb. 
fish  ;  but  there  have  been  endless  well-proved 
instances  of  fish  being  taken  with  not  only  flies 
but  even  worm-hooks  and  spinning  traces  still 
about  or  inside  them,  as  witnesses  of  some  former 
escape.  And,  with  a  worm,  I  have  taken  a  large 
trout  of  about  2  Ibs.  weight,  which  had  six  inches 
of  gut  hanging  out  of  his  mouth,  and  had  in  his 
stomach  a  big  hook  with  a  worm  still  upon  it  that 
had  been  lost  not  twenty  minutes  previously  by  a 
schoolboy — one  of  your  uncles — who  had  hooked 
and  lost  the  trout  before  asking  me  to  try  him. 
Some  twenty  or  more  times  I  have  seen  salmon 


SCROPE  61 

taken  upon  a  fly  notwithstanding  that  they  had 
frightful  raw  wounds  upon  their  bodies  caused  by 
seals  or  porpoises.  Now  it  is  pretty  clearly  proved 
that  a  fish  whilst  in  the  river  does  not  take  food 
because  it  must  eat  to  live,  but,  at  the  most,  from 
greed  only,  or  possibly  from  curiosity  or  destructive- 
ness.  Well,  just  imagine  a  man,  not  starving,  not 
even  hungry,  and  with  a  dreadful,  unhealed  wound 
in  his  body,  yet  ready  to  leap  up  or  to  rush  about 
to  get  a  single  cherry. 

Nearly  every  one  who  considers  the  matter  is 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  salmon  suffers 
very  little  direct  pain,  and  that  the  distress  of  its 
struggles  to  escape  capture  is  not  very  serious 
when  compared  with  its  drowning,  held  fast  by 
the  gills  in  a  stake  net,  or  its  savage  mauling  by 
seals  or  porpoises.  Some  men  go  further  and 
point  out  that  the  salmon  himself  is  the  savage  and 
relentless  foe  of  the  herring  and  the  smaller  fry, 
and  even  of  the  young  of  his  own  species,  and  that 
he  is  captured  in  the  very  act  of  trying  to  kill 
what  he  thinks  is  some  beautiful  creature  swim- 
ming through  the  pool.  The  locus  classicus  is  a 
well-known  passage  in  the  Days  and  Nights  of 
Salmon  Fishing,1  which  I  will  quote  again  in  order 
that  you  may  be  induced  to  read  the  whole  book. 

Scrope  says  at  the  beginning  of  Chapter  iv  : 
'  Let  us  see  how  the  case  stands.  I  take  a  little 


1  Published  in  1835.  Reprinted  with  only  two  plates  in  1854 
(the  edition  which  we  have),  but  a  very  good  and  cheap  reprint  was 
published  in  1885. 


62  THE  SENSE  OF  PAIN  IN  FISH 

wool  and  feather,  and,  tying  it  in  a  particular 
manner  upon  a  hook,  make  an  imitation  of  a  fly  ; 
then  I  throw  it  across  the  river  and  let  it  sweep 
round  the  stream  with  a  lively  motion.  This  I 
have  an  undoubted  right  to  do,  for  the  river 
belongs  to  me  or  my  friend ;  but  mark  what 
follows.  Up  starts  a  monster  fish  with  his 
murderous  jaws,  and  makes  a  dash  at  my  little 
Andromeda.  Thus  he  is  the  aggressor,  not  I ; 
his  intention  is  evidently  to  commit  murder. 
He  is  caught  in  the  act  of  putting  that  intention 
into  execution.  Having  wantonly  intruded  him- 
self on  my  hook,  which  I  contend  he  had  no  right 
to  do,  he  darts  about  in  various  directions,  evi- 
dently surprised  to  find  that  the  fly,  which  he 
hoped  to  make  an  easy  conquest  of,  is  much 
stronger  than  himself.  I  naturally  attempt  to 
regain  this  fly,  unjustly  withheld  from  me.  The 
fish  gets  tired  and  weak  in  his  lawless  endeavours 
to  deprive  me  of  it.  I  take  advantage  of  his 
weakness,  I  own,  and  drag  him,  somewhat  loth, 
to  the  shore,  where  one  rap  on  his  head  ends  him 
in  an  instant/ 


VIII 

SPRING  FISHING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — One  good  day's  salmon  fishing 
in  spring  is  worth  a  week  in  the  late  autumn,  and 
I  would  not  exchange  one  brilliant  glittering  spring 
salmon  for  half  a  dozen  autumn  fish,  or  for  half 
a  score  of  the  hideous  red  sharks  that  one  often 
catches  at  the  end  of  October,  not  to  speak  of  the 
month  of  November,  where  November  fishing  is 
lawful.  The  spring  fish  is  quite  a  different  creature, 
and  he  can  be  inexpressibly  more  brilliant  and 
more  beautiful  than  the  average  autumn  fish, 
although  there  are,  of  course,  spring  fish  long  up 
from  the  sea  that  are  by  no  means  so  glittering 
as  the  best  fish  are. 

Then  you  are  fishing  for  the  spring  salmon  in  a 
time  of  hope  and  joy,  and  of  budding  leaves  and 
singing  birds,  and  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  salmon 
season  when  the  mere  casting  of  the  fly  again  is  a 
perfect  holiday.  But  though  you  may  get  then 
some  of  the  fairest  days  of  the  whole  year,  you  may 
equally,  in  spring,  get  some  of  the  foulest,  so  far 
as  weather  goes.  I  will  tell  you  of  a  week's  spring 
fishing. 

The  Easter  of  1908  was  a  late  one,  but  in  weather 
it  was  much  more  like  Christmas.  On  the 

63 


64  SPRING  FISHING 

Saturday  after  Easter  they  had  a  foot  of  snow  in 
Oxford,  and  in  Hampshire  there  was  even  more. 
I  went  north  with  a  friend  for  seven  days'  fishing, 
and  we  had  blustering  north  or  north-east  winds 
and  repeated  snow  showers  every  day.  But  the 
salmon  seemed  to  like  it ;  and  four  or  five  were 
taken  in  the  very  worst  moments,  whilst  we  fought 
our  way  down  the  pools  against  blinding  showers 
of  snow  and  sleet.  At  such  times  a  savage  snatch 
often  finds  you  unprepared.  I  was  using  some 
gut,  stout  enough,  but  bought  ten  years  ago, 
and  during  that  week  I  left  four  flies  in  fish — 
whether  in  kelts  or  in  spring  fish  I  cannot  tell,  but 
one  always  hopes  that  a  very  violent  tug  comes 
from  a  good,  clean  fish.  In  very  stormy  winds, 
when  you  are  using  your  heaviest  line,  it  is  worth 
while  to  remember  that  the  force  of  the  strike 
upon  the  gut  is  much  more  sudden  and  more 
violent  than  it  is  with  a  lighter  and  more  springy 
line,  and  unless  care  and  sound  tackle  be  used 
you  will  often  be  left,  as  I  was,  to  grieve  over  the 
loss  of  both  fish  and  fly. 

However,  this  Easter,  the  only  fly  that  the  fish 
seemed  ready  to  take  was  a  large,  blood-coloured 
claret  with  a  thick,  rough  body,  a  broad  silver  rib 
and  a  plain  turkey  or  mallard  wing  set  on  low  like 
the  wings  of  a  bee  or  a  stone-fly.  With  this  fly 
I  began  to  fish  early  on  the  Saturday  in  a  bitter 
grey  north  wind.  At  the  third  pool  I  was  just 
picking  my  steps  through  some  willows  growing 
among  the  rocks  on  the  bank  when,  in  the  thin 


FIRST  DAY  OF  THE  SEASON  65 

glassy  slide  at  the  tail  of  the  pool  there  was  a  swirl, 
a  pull,  and  a  few  rolling  plunges,  and  my  first  fish 
of  1908  had  come  and  gone.  .  .  .  Well,  this  is 
black  luck,  but  it  shows  that  there  Js  one  good  fish 
up,  and  there  may  be  more  ;  so  on  to  the  next  pool. 
There,  near  the  top  of  it,  just  as  the  fly  swings 
out  of  the  current  and  is  carefully  see-sawed 
alongside  a  ragged  mass  of  logs  sunk  in  the  water, 
there  comes  a  slight  draw — so  slight  that  it  might 
easily  pass  unnoticed.  A  quick  stroke,  however, 
reveals  the  unmistakable  quiver  of  life,  and  after 
a  few  deep  struggles,  which  just  show  as  oily 
swirls  upon  the  quieter  water  beside  the  stream, 
a  great  fish  dashes  into  the  heavy  current  and  goes 
down  on  the  top  of  it,  walloping  over  and  over, 
and  tearing  the  line  with  short  screeches  off  the 
reel.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  no  kelt.  After  a 
stubborn  sporting  run  in  the  course  of  which  he 
twice  goes  up  into  the  pool  above  only  to  dash 
back  down  the  rapids,  and  in  which  he  repeatedly 
tries  to  take  refuge  amongst  the  snags  which  line 
the  steep  bank,  he  gives  a  chance  and  is  gaffed. 
Sure  enough  he  is  a  clean  fish  of  17,  18,  or  19  Ibs. ; 1 
but  it  is  the  first  day  of  the  season  and  the  scales 
have  been  left  at  home.  I  go  over  all  these  pools 
again  with  the  same  fly,  but  nothing  moves. 
Then  I  try  a  silver-bodied  fly  with  bright  jungle 
cock  over  dark  turkey  wings. 

It  is  now  past  one  o'clock,  so  slinging  the  fish  by 
head  and  tail  with  a  couple  of  yards  of  thick 

1  The  fish  weighed  i8§  Ibs. 
E 


66  SPRING  FISHING 

string,  I  carry  it  down  to  the  fishing  hut  to  meet 
my  friend  and  your  friend,  Professor  S.  Though 
a  learned  man,  and  certainly  the  greatest  master  in 
England  of  his  own  particular  subject,  yet  for 
salmon  fishing  he  has  the  heart  of  a  boy.  When  he 
is  on  a  fishing  holiday  his  keenness  might  be  that 
of  a  certain  tribe  of  pagan  gentlemen  of  the  Tartar 
race  who  in  Siberia  inhabit — or  did  inhabit,  until 
the  Russians  massacred  most  of  them — the  banks 
of  the  river  Amur.  They  are  clothed  in  salmon 
skins,  and  they  live  in  tents  made  of  salmon  skins. 
Of  them  it  is  said  :  '  The  Golde  have  only  one  idea 
in  the  world,  and  that  is  "  salmon."  They  catch 
it,  they  eat  it,  they  talk  of  it,  and  they  dream  of  it.' 
I  feel  sure  that  on  a  fishing  holiday  S.,  who  is 
a  fine  fisher,  nightly  dreams  of  salmon. 

Well,  here  he  is,  more  than  waist  deep  in  the 
stream  :  a  strong  pair  of  arms  and  shoulders 
clothed  in  sand-coloured  Harris  tweed  being  so 
close  to  the  water  that  it  looks  as  if  another  inch 
deeper  must  float  him  off.  He  has  got  no  spring 
fish  yet,  though  he  has  landed  several  kelts. 
After  lunch  I  begin  on  a  lower  pool  and  land  a 
kelt — a  thing  that  some  anglers  affect  to  despise, 
but  it  is  a  thing  that  I,  for  one,  am  very  glad  to  do 
on  the  first  day  of  the  new  season,  when  a  pull  of 
any  kind  gives  you  a  jump  of  pleasure.  Next 
comes  a  savage  tug,  and  a  perfect  spring  battle 
begins.  Straight  off  goes  the  fish,  down  and 
across  the  broad  river,  whilst  I  hurry  along  the 
bank  hoping  that  the  tackle  will  stand  these 


SOMERVILLE  67 

repeated  mad  dashes.  Suddenly  he  swings  round 
and  dashes  back  to  my  bank,  the  long  line,  as  he 
comes,  cutting  the  water  many  yards  behind 
where  the  wave  shows  the  travelling  fish.  Then 
turning  upwards  he  dashes  past,  almost  under  my 
feet,  and  flings  himself  twice  out  of  the  water. 
Reeling  up  as  fast  as  possible,  and  backing  away 
from  the  water  to  get  the  line  taut,  I  find  him  still 
on,  only  to  have  the  same  tactics  repeated  again 
and  again,  except  that  each  time  he  keeps  a  little 
deeper  ;  then,  getting  tired,  he  doggedly  bores  his 
way  right  across  the  pool  and  into  the  shallows 
opposite.  There  he  splashes  about  with  his  back 
out  of  the  water,  and,  though  I  hold  the  rod  butt 
over  my  head  in  order  to  gain  as  much  height  as 
possible,  yet  there  is  eighty  yards  of  line  out,  and 
at  any  moment  he  may  catch  it  round  a  stone. 
But  he  does  not ;  and,  keeping  below  him,  I 
steadily  coax  him  back,  first  into  the  deep  water 
and  soon  under  my  bank.  After  a  time  he  is 
almost  done,  and  the  gaff  is  got  ready ;  but  the 
whole  bank  at  my  feet  is  fringed  with  dwarf 
willows,  and  I  have  to  gaff  him  over  these.  Sud- 
denly he  turns  and  bolts  into  them.  I  can  see  his 
tail,  and  it  is  within  reach.  If  I  try  to  pull  him 
back  out  of  the  willows  he  may  foul  the  gut  and 
break  it,  so  I  decide  to  gaff  him  where  he  is. 
Leaning  over,  I  gaff  him  as  far  up  as  I  can  do,  but 
it  is  two  hand-breadths  only  from  the  tail.  Splash- 
ing and  struggling,  he  is  hauled  up  the  bank,  but 
the  gut  is  caught  on  the  willows,  and  will  not  pull 


68  SPRING  FISHING 

through  them.  I  give  a  violent  pull,  intending  to 
break  the  gut,  but,  somehow  or  other,  as  the  gut 
breaks  the  fish  comes  off  the  gaff,  falls  again  into 
the  willows,  kicks  through  them,  and  is  free. 

I  walk  down  the  bank,  gaff  in  hand,  peering 
into  the  water,  for  I  know  that  he  is  sorely 
wounded,  but  no  sign  of  him  do  I  see.  Two 
village  lads  who  saw  the  fight  that  he  made  loudly 
express  their  grief,  but  I  find  no  words.  I  never 
do  when  I  lose  a  fish.  As  a  parent  I  ought  to  be 
ashamed  to  confess  that  at  small  annoyances  I  do, 
sometimes,  swear ;  but  I  have  not  yet  felt  as  if 
any  mere  words  could  mitigate  the  loss  of  any 
salmon,  much  less  of  a  beautiful  spring  fish.  At 
any  rate,  one  hopes  that  the  fish  may  live  to  fight 
such  a  battle  again.  But  it  is  not  so.  Next  day 
come  the  two  lads  to  say  that  they  can  see  the 
fish  with  a  fly  in  its  mouth  lying  dead  in  the  water 
a  hundred  yards  lower  down,  and  with  a  boat  we 
get  him  out  and  take  my  fly  from  his  jaws.  The 
gaff  had  struck  him  full  in  the  side  and  had  not 
torn  out,  but  apparently  had  jerked  out  on  the 
breaking  of  the  gut,  because  the  point  had  stuck 
in  the  backbone  of  the  fish.  The  fish,  which 
weighed  16  Ibs.,  I  gave  to  the  boys  who  had  found 
him  for  me,  and  the  fly  I  still  have.  It  took  two 
more  spring  fish  during  the  week. 

On  Easter  Monday  I  got  two  fish,  6  Ibs.  and  20 
Ibs.,  both  caught  during  snow  showers,  and  both 
on  the  claret.  From  the  second  fish  I  had  an 
exceptionally  long  and  lively  run.  On  Tuesday 


FISHING  IN  SNOW  69 

evening  S.  was  to  go  home,  and  we  hoped  for  a 
great  day  before  he  left ;  but  the  water  rose  and 
spoilt  the  fishing.  Not  even  the  kelts  would  take. 
At  five  o'clock  we  were  wet  and  cold  and  had 
almost  abandoned  hope,  when  a  fish,  at  the  same 
spot  as  my  first  on  Saturday,  pulled  heavily  at  my 
fly.  He  was  carefully  tried  again,  but  without 
result,  and  as  a  last  chance  in  the  big  water  S. 
went  over  him  with  a  phantom  minnow.  In- 
stantly he  took  it,  and  after  tugging  and  fighting 
for  twenty  minutes  in  the  deepest  part  of  the 
stream,  he  was  gaffed  out,  a  hard,  glittering  cock 
fish  of  1 8  Ibs.  ;  and  he  went  South  that  evening 
with  his  captor. 

On  Wednesday,  fishing  alone,  I  got  two  fish  of 
14^  and  23  Ibs.,  both  caught  in  showers  of  snow. 
On  Thursday,  in  miserable  weather,  I  had  a  total 
blank,  losing  two  flies  in  fish  and  landing  only  a 
couple  of  kelts.  The  next  day  furnished  such  a 
'  fishing  yarn  '  that  perhaps  I  had  better  copy  out 
for  you  the  letter  I  wrote  to  S.  to  give  him  an 
account  of  it. 

26/4/1908. 

MY  DEAR  S., — On  Friday  morning  the  snow  lay 
thick  on  the  ground  and  a  bitter  N.E.  gale  was 
blowing.  I  went  rather  late  to  the  river,  and 
tried  chiefly  for  three  fish  that  I  had  moved  the 
day  before.  About  3.30  one  of  them  threw 
himself  out  of  the  water  opposite  the  clump  of 
willows  in  the  Boat  pool,  and  I  saw  that  he  was  a 
good  spring  fish.  I  had  already  fished  over  him 

E  2 


7o  SPRING  FISHING 

once,  but  a  blinding  snow  shower  came  on  and  I 
tried  him  again  there  and  then.  He  rose  at  once, 
but  after  five  or  six  plunges,  when  I  thought  him 
pretty  safe,  the  hook  came  away.  I  fished  on 
with  very  small  hope  until  five  o'clock,  and  then 
got  warm  by  driving  in  the  posts,  with  an  iron 
maul,  for  the  new  railing  at  the  fishing  hut. 
Before  going  home  I  tried  a  fish  lying  in  the  tail 
of  the  heavy  stream  below  the  hut.  He  had 
already  taken  the  claret  fly  the  day  before,  and  he 
took  it  again — hard — but  the  hook  came  away. 
He  could  not  be  induced  to  look  at  the  fly  any 
more,  so  I  put  up  a  spinning  rod  and  tried  him 
with  a  small  minnow,  just  as  a  snow  shower  was 
passing  off.  He  took  the  minnow  after  two  or 
three  offers  and  played  strongly  for  five  minutes, 
when  he  contrived  to  get  the  line  round  the  end  of 
a  long,  thin  larch  pole  that  lay  under  the  bank 
deep  in  the  water.  No  poking  of  the  top  of  the  rod 
down  to  the  pole  would  get  the  line  off,  although 
it  ran  quite  freely  under  the  pole  to  the  fish,  so  I 
let  out  a  lot  of  slack  line  and  then  jumped  in  and 
gaffed  up  the  pole,  getting  wet  pretty  nearly  up 
to  the  neck.  Tom  Falshaw  stood  on  the  bank 
below  me,  and  on  raising  the  pole  I  swung  it  round 
to  him  and  he  released  the  line,  which  had  lodged 
behind  a  small  branch  near  the  end  of  it.  Luckily 
the  line  had  continued  to  run  freely  and  the  fish 
was  still  on.  For  another  five  or  six  minutes  he 
kept  playing  in  the  heavy  water,  but  then  he  came 
to  the  surface  a  few  yards  above  me  and  rolled 


A  LUCKY  FLUKE  71 

over  on  his  side,  and  the  minnow  instantly  flew  up 
into  the  air.  At  first  the  fish  did  not  seem  to 
realise  that  he  was  free.  Whilst  you  might  count 
five  or  six  he  floated  down  on  his  side  in  the  centre 
of  the  current,  but  when  just  opposite  to  us  he 
righted  himself  and  slowly  dived  into  the  stream. 
There  was  little  more  than  a  rod's  length  of  line 
out,  and  I  had  been  preparing  to  drop  the  minnow 
over  him,  as  he  floated  by,  and  then  to  try  to  strike 
it  into  him.  But  seeing  him  dive  and  disappear 
I  thought  all  hope  was  gone.  Still,  I  judged  that 
he  would  allow  himself  to  go  down  with  the 
current,  so  I  swung  the  minnow  over  and  dropped 
it  in  well  beyond  and  below  him,  and  after  count- 
ing five,  to  allow  time  for  it  to  sink,  I  struck  hard 
up-stream,  but  with  only  the  very  faintest  hope  of 
any  result.  I  could  hardly  believe  my  senses 
when  I  felt  that  it  had  struck  him — deep  in  the 
water,  so  that  not  even  any  of  the  six-foot  long 
spinning  trace  was  visible.  However,  he  left  no 
doubt  about  it,  for  he  promptly  bolted  down  the 
heavy  stream  and  bored  away  across  the  river  until 
he  got  into  two  feet  of  water.  There  he  kept 
splashing  about,  always  pulling  straight  away  from 
me  and  going  down-stream,  so  that,  knowing  him 
to  be  hooked  foul,  I  guessed  that  he  must  be 
hooked  in  the  tail.  After  a  time  he  came  slowly 
walloping  to  the  surface  and  continued  to  roll 
about  on  the  top  whilst  I  towed  him  tail  first  and 
very  slowly — for  I  was  uncommonly  fearful  and 
gentle  with  him — across  to  my  side,  where  I  gaffed 


72  SPRING  FISHING 

him.  He  was  a  beautiful,  clean-run  fish  of 
15  Ibs.,  and  the  minnow  was  holding  by  one 
triangle  at  the  base  of  the  upper  ray  of  his 
tail,  and  it  fell  out  as  I  carried  him  up  the 
bank. 

It  really  is  such  a  preposterous  fluke  that  I  can 
hardly  ask  to  be  believed  in  telling  it.  However, 
I  had  two  '  lawful  men  of  the  vicinage  '  as  wit- 
nesses, Tom  Falshaw,  and  Alick,  too,  who  had 
arrived  just  as  the  fish  was  released  from  the 
snag  on  which  he  had  hung  up  the  line. 

After  such  miracle-working  as  this,  yesterday — 
which  was  my  last  day — was  tame  enough, 
though  it  was  an  almost  exact  repetition  of  your 
day  on  Tuesday.  There  were  at  least  two  inches 
of  fresh  snow,  and  Dorothy  and  I  spent  the 
morning  in  building  a  huge  kneeling  snow  man 
for  the  two  boys,  with  lumps  of  coal  for  eyes,  and 
adorned  like  a  scarecrow  with  pipe,  stick,  and  an 
old  fishing  hat.  I  went  up  to  fish  at  12.30,  and 
at  one  o'clock  landed  a  big  kelt  from  the  far  side 
of  the  Stakes.  A  bitter,  black  east  wind  came  on, 
and  about  five  I  went  up  to  try  the  more  sheltered 
water  of  No.  4  pool.  There,  exactly  as  you  had 
done  on  Tuesday,  but  about  a  long  cast  lower  down 
the  pool,  I  got  a  very  strong  cock  fish  of  20  Ibs. — 
a  very  wild,  jumping  fighter,  and  the  best  for  shape 
and  colour  that  I  have  got  this  spring.  I  do  not 
think  that  I  ever  had  a  better,  or  at  any  rate  a 
much  better,  fish. 

This  ended  the  stormiest  and  coldest  fishing, 


ANOTHER  SPRING  DAY  73 

but  the  best  for  steady  sport,  that  I  ever  remember 
at  Easter. — Yours,  A.  C. 

And,  my  boys,  I  believe  that  that  letter,  which 
I  wrote  in  the  train  to  S.,  by  no  means  exaggerates 
the  extraordinary  fluke  that  had  occurred. 


MY  DEAR  BOYS, — I  will  begin  with  another 
letter  to  S. 

Train  going  South, 
Monday  Evening,  tfh  May  1908. 

MY  DEAR  S., — I  had  to  go  North  for  a  good 
sportsman's  burying  to-day — my  cousin  Bill. 
On  Friday  evening  I  found  myself  free,  so  after 
wiring  to  know  what  the  river  was  doing,  I  started 
off  by  the  night  train  to  get  one  day  at  the  salmon. 

On  Saturday  morning  I  found  the  river  still  in 
flood  and  very  high — a  foot  above  the  rails,1  but 
reported  to  be  clearing  and  falling  quickly. 
There  was  a  wretched,  foggy  east  wind,  but  on  a 
one-day  fishing,  if  only  the  water  will  let  me  fish, 

1  shall  never  waste  time  in  grumbling  at  the 
weather. 

In  the  fourth  pool  I  got  a  good  yellow  trout  of 

2  Ibs.     I  saw  a  fresh  fish  in  the  level  dub  of  the 
A.  pool  opposite  the  stone  jetty,  and  in  the  evening 
saw   a   second  lying   above  him   by   the   fence. 
Twenty  yards  above  the  railings  in  the  Thorns 
stream  there  was  another  fish  splashing  every  now 

1  These  'rails'  were  the  mark  of  very  high  fishing  water  on  that 
river. 


74  SPRING  FISHING 

and  then  in  the  heavy  stream,  but  none  of  them 
would  take  a  fly,  or  even  a  minnow,  though  I  pegged 
away  at  them  until  about  four  o'clock.  Then  I 
went  to  the  hut  and  fished  down.  The  stream 
below  that  was  far  too  heavy  to  fish,  but  when  I 
got  to  the  pool  below  the  Stakes  it  grew  suddenly 
dark.  About  five  o'clock  a  gentle,  misty  rain 
began,  and  just  below  the  neck  of  the  stream,  to 
my  surprise — for  the  Devil's  Water  coming  in  just 
above  was  still  in  muddy  flood — a  good  fish  took 
on  the  edge  of  the  stream  and  almost  under  my 
bank.  First  he  rushed  me  about  and  then  I 
hustled  him  about,  but  took  the  very  greatest 
care  in  doing  so,  as  I  felt  sure  that  it  was  my  only 
chance  of  the  day,  and  I  was  anxious  to  get  him 
thoroughly  '  done  '  before  bringing  him  up  to  that 
ugly,  bushy  bank,  in  the  high  water  that  was 
running.  Even  when  he  got  tired  he  kept  out  of 
reach  for  some  time,  but  at  last  he  swirled  round 
just  above  me  and  began  boring  under  some 
willows.  He  was  swimming  almost  straight  down- 
wards in  deep  water  with  his  head  out  of  sight, 
but  against  the  roots  of  the  willows,  and  his  tail 
slowly  waving  in  the  dark  red  water  about  six 
inches  below  the  surface.  I  reached  over  the 
willows  below  him  and,  to  lessen  the  great  risk  of 
gaffing  the  line,  I  gaffed  him  in  the  '  tummy,' 
near  the  tail — greatly  fearing  another  bungle  such 
as  that  by  which  I  lost  a  fish  in  the  same  place 
when  we  were  last  fishing  together.  This  time  all 
went  well,  and  he  proved  to  be  a  clinking  good  fish, 


THE  ONLY  RISE  75 

a  perfect  little   pig  in  shape,   and  he  weighed 
18  Ibs. 

I  fished  that  pool  over  again  and  then  hurried 
off  to  give  a  last  trial  to  my  friends  of  the  morning, 
but  though  the  water  was  clearing  and  looked 
quite  good  enough  for  them,  yet  my  eighteen- 
pounder  remained  the  only  taker  of  the  day. — 
Yours,  A.  C. 

That,  my  dear  boys,  is  spring  fishing  all  over. 
Pool  after  pool,  looking  perfect,  and  certain,  as 
you  feel,  to  hold  fish,  you  fish  over  without  a  sign. 
Your  high  hopes  are  growing  faint  or  have  gone 
altogether,  when,  often  at  the  most  unlikely 
place,  jump  in  your  arm  goes  an  electric  thrill, 
and  the  one  rise  of  the  day  has  come  and  the  fish 
is  gone  :  or  else,  hardly  knowing  how  it  has 
happened,  your  nerves  are  found  watching,  and 
the  half-raised  rod  is  twitching  and  quivering 
with  the  line  tight  upon  a  plunging,  splashing, 
rolling  salmon,  beginning  a  battle  of  anxious, 
growing  hope,  ending  with  a  noble,  glittering  prize. 

As  far  as  catching  fish  goes,  you  may  now  go 
home.  Unless  your  lines  are,  indeed,  cast  in 
pleasant  places  you  have  had  your  only  fish  of  the 
day,  and  you  will  catch  no  more.  The  memories 
of  many  days  of  spring  fishing  tell  us  so,  and  in  our 
hearts  we  know  it  as  we  admire  this  shapely, 
shining  fish.  But,  go  home !  do  you  say  ? 
Hang  it,  man,  the  day  is  only  just  begun.  Go 
home  !  Don't  you  know  that  every  cast  that  I 


76  SPRING  FISHING 

make  after  this  I  shall  feel  certain  that  I  am 
going  to  take  another  fish.  I  shall  be  fishing 
better  than  I  have  ever  fished  to-day.  I  've  got 
one  ;  nothing  can  make  it  a  blank  day  now,  and, 
with  a  little  luck,  I  shall  certainly  get  another. 

Well,  this  is  called  patience  by  those  who  don't 
know.  But  it  is  nothing  at  all  like  patience.  It 
is  hope,  undying,  unquenchable,  the  heart  and 
soul  of  salmon  fishing. 


To  A  SALMON  RIVER  IN  SPRING 

Springing  in  the  moorlands 
In  a  thousand  rills, 
Each  a  tiny  torrent 
That  the  rain-storm  fills, 
Now  a  mighty  river 
Pouring  from  the  hills. 

Brown  rushing  river 
Swirling  round  our  knees, 
Running  here  so  broadly 
Through  the  lowland  leas, 
But  hiding  lusty  salmon 
Fresh  from  wintry  seas ! 

Yield  up  these  monarchs  of  thy  peat-stained  streams ! 
Show  us  each  fastness  where  a  salmon  gleams ! 
Make  us  the  dreamers  of  thy  fairest  dreams  ! 


IX 

A   WEEK-END    IN    OCTOBER 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — This  is  Monday  evening,  and  as 
I  rush  back  to  London  in  the  fastest  train  that 
runs  from  Scotland,  I  am  passing  the  time  by 
writing  an  account  for  you  of  the  last  three  days' 
fishing. 

I  travelled  North  last  Thursday  night  and  had 
a  very  early  breakfast  on  Friday.  Then  I  rushed 
off  to  the  river  and  was  ready  to  make  my  first 
cast  at  five  minutes  to  nine. 

Just  look  at  the  day !  It  is  dull  and  foggy,  and 
the  wind  is  from  the  east.  The  water  is  fairly 
clear,  but  is  still  very  high  and  is  stained  with 
peat,  for  it  was  news  of  a  sudden  flood  just  before 
the  season  closed  that  had  brought  me  up. 

What  fly  shall  we  begin  with  ?  I  think  I  shall 
start  in  that  long,  rough  stream,  and  shall  begin 
with  the  very  biggest  fly  that  I  have,  this  great 
clumsy  Jock  Scott,  a  full  two  and  a  half  inches 
long.  Very  often  in  a  big  black  water  the  fish 
have  taken  such  a  fly  when  they  would  not  look 
at  anything  smaller,  however  bright  it  might  be. 

With  the  river  as  high  as  this  we  will  skip  the 
first  forty  yards,  the  swiftest  and  roughest  of  the 
water,  for  it  is  only  where  the  stream  begins  to 

77 


78  A  WEEK-END  IN  OCTOBER 

spread  out  and  to  run  less  turbulently  that  we  shall 
take  a  fish  to-day.  So  the  first  cast  is  made 
abreast  of  a  broken  fence  that  stands  amongst 
the  bushes  on  the  opposite  bank.  For  one,  two, 
five,  ten,  fifteen  minutes,  nothing  happens,  though 
every  sense  is  on  the  alert  as  the  fly  comes  round 
in  the  very  best  water  that  we  ever  fish.  Can  the 
fish  be  going  to  sulk  on  the  first  fly  day  after  an 
October  flood  ? 

It  almost  seems  so.  A  fresh  cast  is  made  almost 
square  across  the  water,  and  the  line  at  once  begins 
to  '  belly  '  in  the  rushing  current.  '  Phist '  goes 
the  slacking  line,  up  goes  the  rod,  and  almost  before 
I  know  what  has  happened  or  how  it  happened, 
the  line  is  tightened  hard  and  the  thudding,  heavy 
plunges  of  a  good  fish  come  plain  and  unmistak- 
able. In  a  moment  he  breaks  the  surface  and 
then,  whilst  one  may  count  ten,  he  thrashes  about 
to  get  rid  of  this  terrifying  restraint.  Lash — lash — 
lash — lash  ;  then  a  second  of  quiet  and  again  the 
thrashing  begins.  There  is  no  mistaking  a  good 
fish  when  he  does  this,  however  little  you  may  be 
able  to  see  of  him.  Presently  he  settles  down 
and  begins  trying  short  dashes  about  the  pool, 
then  a  resolute  boring  up  to  the  head  of  the  stream 
and  a  sudden  dash  down  again.  Then  the  end 
begins  ;  he  comes  out  into  the  quieter  water  and 
presently  his  sullen  plunges  begin  to  break  the 
surface  of  the  water  again,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
more  he  rolls  over  on  his  side  and  is  brought  out 
with  a  long  gaff.  Well,  he  is  a  clinker  ;  a  short, 


LOSING  FISH  79 

thick,  and  hard,  though  reddish,  cock  fish  of  four- 
and-twenty  pounds. 

I  start  the  pool  again.  This  time  only  a  few 
casts  down  it  the  line  suddenly  tightens  and  three 
or  four  heavy  kicks  tell  of  a  good  fish.  But  he  is 
gone  ;  and  he  refuses,  of  course,  to  come  again. 
Another  ten  minutes  and  just  off  the  end  of  the 
fence,  where  the  first  fish  took,  a  thumping  rise  is 
followed  by  the  slow,  heavy  thrashing  of  another 
big  fish.  Five  seconds,  ten  seconds  pass — a  long 
time  they  seem — and  one  is  just  feeling  sure  that 
the  fish  is  well  hooked  when  up  flies  the  top  of  the 
quivering  rod  and  the  long  line  hangs  loose.  He 
must  have  broken  me.  With  a  sickening  feeling 
of  disappointment  I  pull  in  the  line.  No  !  the 
fly  is  there.  The  point  of  the  hook  is  not  blunted, 
and  the  hook  itself  is  firm  and  rigid  and  is  not 
'  sprung/  It  must  have  got  only  a  slight  hold,  or 
else  I  think  that  its  point  must  have  been  resting 
against  a  bone.  But  they  are  getting  off  the  hook 
in  a  most  unaccountable  way.  Perhaps  this  hook 
is  too  big  ;  at  any  rate  the  point  is  sharp  and  the 
fish  are  coming  to  this  fly,  so  we  will  try  it  again  in 
the  deepest  water.  Presently  a  gallant  fish  comes, 
and  he  makes  such  a  wild,  dashing,  tearing  fight 
that,  failing  to  break  the  gut,  he  is  soon  '  dead 
beat/  turns  on  his  back,  and  is  taken  out  within 
five  minutes  of  his  hooking,  a  short,  bright  fish  of 
17  Ibs. 

Gemini  !  what  a  day  !  It  is  only  just  past  ten 
o'clock  and  we  have  taken  two  good  fish  and  lost 


8o  A  WEEK-END  IN  OCTOBER 

two  more,  both  of  which,  with  ordinary  luck, 
should  have  been  landed.  But  the  next  hour  and 
a  half  brings  no  more  rises  though  we  fish  the 
entire  pool  again  with  the  big  Jock  Scott,  then 
with  a  big  claret  and  mallard,  and  finally  go  over 
the  best  of  it  with  a  smaller  Jock  Scott. 

Then  we  go  to  the  slower  stream  above,  a  deep, 
still  pool  ending  with  a  big,  strong-running  dub, 
which  itself  ends  in  a  glassy  suck  past  big  stones 
to  the  rapids.  It  is  fished  from  a  broad  gravel 
bed,  making  very  easy  wading.  As  the  rod  is 
being  lifted  to  recover  the  line  after  the  very 
first  cast,  a  fish  follows  the  fly  and  snatches  it. 
It  is  not  a  big  fish,  and  in  this  open  water  it 
gets  little  mercy,  and  a  very  lively  five  minutes 
sees  it  also  on  the  gravel  bank — a  hen  fish  of 
13  Ibs. 

For  the  rest  of  that  long  pool,  a  good  hour  of 
most  careful  fishing,  not  one  fish  moved.  But 
at  the  very  end  a  fish  showed  himself.  He  was 
above  me,  just  breaking  the  surface  at  the  far 
side  of  the  glassy  run,  and  lying  so  far  over  that  the 
fly  had  not  covered  him,  so  I  worked  myself  back 
a  few  yards  and  let  out  line  cast  by  cast  until  he 
saw  the  fly  and  took  it.  A  jolly,  stout-hearted 
fish  he  proved  to  be,  and  after  thrashing  about 
until  he  got  right  into  the  rapids,  he  came  steadily 
up-stream  and  explored  his  own  pool  in  every 
direction,  grubbed  amongst  the  rocks  under  the 
opposite  bank,  and  sailed  round  and  round  the 
great  boulder  in  the  stream.  Then  he  turned 


TWO  FISH  81 

again  for  the  rapids  and  splashed  and  raced  down 
them  into  the  pool  below.  There  the  game  ended 
in  favour  of  the  rod,  and  he  was  duly  weighed  out 
at  22  Ibs. 

It  was  now  one  o'clock,  so  I  sent  Tom  off  to 
the  fishing  hut  to  boil  the  kettle  whilst  I  went 
down  the  rough  stream  once  more  with  a  large 
white  and  silver  fly.  This  time  I  began  a  little 
higher  up,  and  when  I  had  come  just  opposite  the 
fence  as  the  fly — which  fell  in  the  slack  water — 
was  being  towed  by  the  current  into  the  rush,  there 
was  a  splashing  rise  like  that  of  a  great  trout. 
A  big  belly  of  line  tore  out  of  the  stream  as  the  rod 
was  raised,  and  a  few  yards  higher  up  a  red  cock 
fish  flung  himself  out  with  the  line  trailing  behind 
him.  His  way  of  fighting  was  most  unusual.  It 
was  to  make  long,  dogged  runs  down  and  across 
the  stream.  Then  under  the  other  bank  he  would 
begin  jig-jig-jiggering,  and  keep  this  up  until  I 
had  got  him  near  my  bank  again,  when  he  would 
once  more  dash  off  for  the  other  side  and  repeat  the 
same  performance.  He  had  contrived  to  get  the 
gut  caught  round  the  bony  cartilage  at  the  corner 
of  his  mouth  on  the  farther  side  from  me,  and 
possibly  that  may  have  been  the  reason  why  he 
preferred  to  make  all  his  runs  down-stream. 
However,  all  things  come  to  an  end,  and  he  soon 
ended  on  the  bank — 144  Ibs. 

It  was  now  half-past  one,  but  before  going  down 
to  luncheon  I  finished  out  the  pool  and  hooked  and 
lost  a  very  heavy  fish.  How  big  he  was  I  cannot 

F 


82  A  WEEK-END  IN  OCTOBER 

say,  for  though  he  kept  splashing  on  the  surface 
of  the  water  he  never  showed  himself  clear  of  it, 
and  he  was  only  on  for  a  few  minutes.  Certainly 
he  was  not  less  than  20  Ibs. — my  hopes  put  him  at 
not  less  than  five-and-twenty. 

And  so  to  lunch.  Past  two  o'clock  and  I  had 
got  five  fish  and  lost  three.  I  found  your  '  Uncle  ' 
Clervaux,  who  had  only  begun  to  fish  at  twelve 
o'clock,  with  a  white  and  silver  fly  that  I  had  made 
for  him  ten  days  before,  had  got  three  good  fish, 
14^,  14^,  and  12  Ibs.  The  day  was  getting  darker 
and  more  foggy,  and  when  we  went  on  again  the 
fish  were  much  more  shy.  At  the  tail  of  my  first 
stream  I  hooked,  and  after  a  few  minutes  lost,  a 
heavy  fish,  and  also  had  another  rise  and  held  for 
a  few  splashes  a  little  fish  of  6  or  7  Ibs.  From  then 
until  dusk  not  a  fish  would  look  at  the  fly,  but  then 
in  a  swift,  smooth  run  a  nice  fish  boiled  up  and 
just  touched  the  fly.  At  the  next  cast  he  again 
came  up  and  followed  the  fly  across  the  pool,  but 
after  that  he  would  not  move,  although  I  tried 
him  with  several  flies.  As  a  last  resort  as  darkness 
set  in  he  was  tried  and  killed  on  a  small  phantom 
minnow.  He  weighed  n  Ibs.  So  ended  my  day. 
Six  fish,  24,  17,  13,  22,  14^,  and  n  Ibs.,  and  five 
fish  lost.  Uncle  Clervaux  got  one  more  fish,  a 
fine  hen  fish  of  25  Ibs. 

On  Saturday  we  began  early.  S.  arrived  by  a 
train  early  enough  to  permit  of  breakfast  at  7.15, 
and  by  eight  o'clock  we  were  off  to  the  river.  A 
gusty  wind,  strong  and  bitterly  cold,  blew  up- 


A  WOUNDED  FISH  83 

stream  and  made  fishing  very  hard  work  indeed. 
I  went  to  the  water  that  I  had  fished  on  Friday. 
In  the  dub,  at  9.15,  a  fish  swirled  up  just  after  the 
fly  had  fallen  on  the  water,  but  he  missed  it.  At 
the  next  cast  he  followed  the  fly  for  six  or  seven 
yards,  and  at  the  third  cast  he  did  the  same,  but 
this  time  he  ended  by  taking  it  with  a  rush  and  a 
fine  swirl.  Then  he  bolted  down  through  the 
rapids  into  the  next  pool,  where  in  due  time  he 
was  landed,  a  cock  fish  of  19  Ibs.  This  fish  had 
received  at  some  time  what  must  have  been  a  most 
terrible  wound.  The  vent  and  a  large  part  of  the 
left  side  above  it  for  a  distance  of  five  or  six  inches 
had  been  torn  or  bitten  out.  The  wound  in  the 
side  had  healed  perfectly,  though  still  showing  a 
great  hollow,  but  the  vent  was  altogether  gone,  and 
in  its  place,  though  rather  to  one  side,  was  a  great 
round  hole  into  which  one  could  have  thrust 
a  half-crown  piece. 

I  then  fished  the  lower  pool  with  a  white  and 
silver  fly.  In  the  heaviest  water  a  big  fish  took 
the  fly  with  a  glorious  snatch.  He  seemed  to  be 
firmly  hooked,  and  he  gave  a  great  run  for  ten 
minutes,  but  then  I  lost  him  by  a  piece  of  gross 
carelessness — by  shifting  the  rod  to  my  right  hand 
and  with  it  holding  rod  and  line  together  just  as 
the  fish  made  a  dash  down-stream,  splashing  along 
the  surface  and  tearing  out  the  hold. 

Immediately  after  losing  this  fish  I  got  a 
vicious  pull  from  another,  and  a  few  minutes  later 
a  third  fish  came  twice  to  the  fly,  but  was  not 


84  A  WEEK-END  IN  OCTOBER 

hooked.  From  that  time,  about  ten  o'clock,  until 
four,  though  I  slaved  hard  and  fished  the  very 
best  I  knew,  I  got  no  rise  at  all. 

At  four  o'clock  a  good  fish  followed  the  fly  twice, 
but  would  not  touch  it,  and  shortly  afterwards,  fish- 
ing above  our  boat-house,  a  big  fish  lying  in  very 
quiet  water  snatched  the  fly,  and  throwing  himself 
over  and  over,  broke  the  gut.  I  suppose  it  had  been 
weakened  by  casting  in  the  rough  wind,  but  still 
a  break  like  that  is  entirely  the  fault  of  the  fisher. 
It  is  inexcusable  not  to  test  the  gut  often,  and 
more  frequently  than  ever  should  one  try  it  on  a 
windy  day,  when  one  ought  to  know  that  gut  runs 
great  risk  of  becoming  weakened.  S.,  I  was  told, 
had  got  four  good  fish,  and  my  bag  looked  very 
poor  beside  his.  But  luck  came,  as  it  does  so 
often,  with  the  dusk.  The  sun  had  come  out  and 
had  shone  brightly  during  the  afternoon,  and  just 
as  it  was  setting  I  saw  a  heavy  fish  rising  near  the 
point  of  a  jetty.  The  place  is  a  favourite  and  most 
deadly  cast  if  the  fly  is  allowed  to  hang  beside  the 
current ;  and  I  fished  it  most  carefully  now  with 
a  small  Jock  Scott.  No  sooner  had  I  finished  it 
than  the  same  fish  began  to  rise  again  and  again. 
So  I  put  on  a  large  white  and  silver  fly l  and  began 
the  pool  anew.  As  the  fly  covered  him  he  rose 
with  a  quick  flicker  of  the  tail  that  made  me  feel 
sure  that  he  had  taken  it.  He  had  not,  but  at  the 

1  This  fly,  called  a  '  white  and  silver,'  has  a  perfectly  plain  body  of 
oval  silver,  a  rather  long  white  hackle,  and  wings  of  dark  turkey,  with 
a  large  jungle-cock's  feather  over  each  wing.  No  tail,  tag,  butt,  head, 
or  any  other  adornment. 


THE  WHITE  AND  SILVER  FLY  85 

next  cast  he  made  no  mistake  and  took  the  fly 
hard,  under  water. 

At  first  he  kept  deep  in  the  water,  but  as  soon  as 
he  got  thoroughly  frightened  he  bolted  down  the 
stream  for  twenty  or  thirty  yards  and  then  flung 
himself  clear  out  of  the  water,  falling  in  with  a 
mighty  splash  and  then  tearing  off  down-stream 
again.  Up  to  that  moment  I  had  no  idea  that  he 
was  more  than  a  decent  twenty-pounder,  but  my 
heart  jumped  as  I  realised  that  he  must  be  at 
least  30  Ibs.,  and  that  we  were  to  fight  it  out  in 
growing  darkness  on  the  worst  piece  of  bank  and 
in  the  most  risky  piece  of  water  on  the  river,  the 
whole  bank  being  lined  with  snags  and  sunken  logs, 
and  one  fine  snag  lying  right  in  midstream  about 
ten  yards  below  him. 

There  is  not  much  to  be  said  about  the  next 
twenty  minutes,  but  a  great  deal  was  done  in  it, 
and  there  was  much  water  splashed  about  and 
much  running  up  and  down  of  banks  and  struggling 
and  tumbling  through  willows  and  bushes  on  my 
part,  but  it  all  ended  right,  in  a  fine  cock  fish  of 
33  Ibs.,  though  a  very  red  one,  with  the  most 
enormous  '  gib  '  that  I  have  ever  seen.  As  I  lifted 
him  up  the  bank  the  fly  fell  out  of  his  mouth,  and 
we  found  that  at  some  time  during  the  fight  he 
had  snapped  the  hook  off  behind  the  barb.  It 
was  a  bit  of  luck  to  land  him,  and  all  the  more 
welcome  because  this  was  the  heaviest  fish  that 
I  had  ever  landed  on  the  fly.  The  fly  itself  I 
shall  keep  in  my  museum  box  of  treasures. 

F2 


86  A  WEEK-END  IN  OCTOBER 

To-day,  Monday,  was  my  last  day.  I  had  to 
leave  the  water  by  two  o'clock — absolutely  the 
last  moment  if  I  would  catch  this  train  that  I  am 
now  in.  We  began  to  fish  at  a  quarter-past  nine. 
The  day  was  wretched,  with  constant  showers  and 
a  cold  north-east  wind,  and  by  eleven  o'clock  I  had 
had  three  feeble  rises  and  had  got  no  fish,  so  I  put 
up  a  spinning  rod  and  at  the  first  cast  took  a  sea- 
trout  of  3  Ibs.  A  few  minutes  later  I  got  a  salmon 
of  19  Ibs.,  and  shortly  afterwards  lost  a  big  fish  on 
the  minnow.  The  fish  contrived  to  get  the  line 
foul  on  a  rock  and  tore  itself  away,  taking  with  it 
both  of  the  triangles  from  my  minnow.  Then  I 
took  to  the  fly  again,  a  small  port-wine  coloured 
fly,  and  landed  a  beautiful  bright  cock  fish  of 
17  Ibs. — an  exceptionally  good  fish  for  so  late  in 
the  year.  Then  I  moved  to  an  upper  pool  and 
had  another  pull,  and  presently  amongst  the 
boulders  at  the  far  side  of  the  pool  a  fish  boiled 
up  at  the  fly,  and  after  a  little  coaxing  came  again 
and  was  hooked  and  landed — a  female  fish,  short 
and  thick,  of  16  or  17  Ibs.  However,  as  October 
was  nearly  out  and  female  fish  are  poor  to  eat,  but 
precious  for  spawning,  she  was  gently  unhooked 
and  slipped  in  again,  though  looking  rather  sorry 
for  herself.  By  this  time  it  is  nearly  two  o'clock, 
and  I  go  up  and  have  five  minutes'  fishing  at  the 
place  where  I  took  the  thirty-three  pounder  last 
Saturday.  Then  I  try  a  few  last  casts  with  the 
minnow  rod  before  taking  it  down,  and  in  making 
my  very  longest  throw  for  the  very  last  cast  of  the 


THE  LAST  CAST  OF  THE  SEASON        87 

season  the  minnow  sticks  fast  on  the  gravelly 
shallows  opposite.  I  take  hold  of  the  line,  point 
the  rod  at  the  water  and  pull  heavily,  meaning 
to  break  the  line  ;  but  the  strain  drags  away  the 
minnow,  no  doubt  turning  over  the  stone  on  which 
it  had  caught.  The  minnow  swings  into  the  heavy 
water,  and  as  I  reel  up  some  fish  snatches  it  and 
begins  to  splash  in  all  directions.  Just  after 
two  o'clock  he  is  landed,  a  sea- trout  of  5  Ibs., 
and  in  ten  minutes  more  I  am  in  the  dogcart  with 
two  out  of  three  salmon  and  two  sea-trout,  and 
my  week-end  and  my  season  are  both  over. 

Not  a  bad  week-end  either — eleven  salmon, 
weighing  205  Ibs.,  an  average  of  over  i8J  Ibs. 
apiece,  besides  two  sea-trout.  Nor  a  bad  season 
either  that  is  ended  by  this  week-end.  Seventy- 
three  salmon  it  has  found  for  me  in  one  place  or 
another,  including  my  heaviest  fish — 40^  Ibs. 


X 

MINNOW   FISHING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Avoid  minnow  fishing  for  salmon 
as  a  canker  that  will  eat  into  some  of  the  very  best 
days  of  your  fly  fishing. 

Before  the  introduction  of  the  '  Silex  '  casting 
reel,  minnow  fishing  was  a  tedious  and  clumsy 
process,  and  there  was  little  to  tempt  any  good 
fly  fisher  to  use  a  minnow  beyond  the  period  for 
which  alone,  as  I  think,  it  is  fitted  or  is  really 
justifiable.  That  is  during  the  rise  or  fall  of  a 
flood  when  the  water  is  more  or  less  muddy  and 
inky  black,  and  the  fly  is  useless  or  very  nearly 
useless.  Then,  without  doubt,  the  artificial 
minnow  can  kill  fish  well,  and  as  the  water  clears 
can  do  great  execution  amongst  the  very  largest 
fish. 

But  it  is  a  dangerous  thing  for  you  to  begin  its 
use.  As  soon  as  one  has  mastered  the  knack  of 
casting  from  the  reel,  one  can  fish  a  minnow 
tolerably,  and  can  drag  out  in  the  most  summary 
way  three  or  four  large  fish  on  a  day  when  one's 
fly  fishing  is  quite  fruitless.  The  next  day  the 
river  has  cleared  and  has  become  perfect  for  the 
fly.  It  ought  to  be  a  tip-top  day.  But  you  are 
tempted  of  the  devil  to  try  just  for  an  hour  the 


FISH  FLY  IF  POSSIBLE  89 

phantom  minnow  that  you  know  proved  so  deadly 
the  day  before.  You  take  a  fish  or  two  and  then 
you  go  on  with  the  minnow  all  day  long,  making  a 
big  bag  perhaps,  but  dragging  out  the  fish  with  a 
trace  made  of  steel  wire,  and  armed  with  two  or 
three  triangle  hooks,  and  at  the  end  of  the  day 
feeling  that  you  have  been  rather  a  butcher  than 
a  fisherman,  and  that  you  might  almost  as  well 
have  used  a  net ;  and  conscious  also  that  your 
comrade,  who  has  kept  on  with  the  fly  and  has  had 
but  a  couple  of  good  fish,  is  a  better  sportsman 
than  you  have  been,  and  has  had  a  far  more  enjoy- 
able day. 

Still  more  fatally  tempting  is  the  relapse  to 
minnow  when,  after  a  good  day  minnowing,  you 
find  next  morning  that  the  water  is  right  for  the 
fly,  and  you  resolve  to  make  it  a  day  of  fly  only. 
You  put  on  your  best  fly  and  you  begin  full  of 
hope.  For  an  hour  or  two  you  cover  much  water 
without  a  single  rise,  and  you  begin  to  doubt 
whether  the  fish  mean  to  take  at  all  to-day. 
Soon,  just  to  see  whether  they  will  move  at  all, 
you  put  up  the  spinning  rod,  resolved  merely  to 
have  one  try  down  the  pool.  A  fish  takes  the 
accursed  thing,  and  you  are  lost.  Abandoning 
all  sense  of  decency,  you  pursue  the  horrible  craft, 
and  at  dusk  you  stagger  back  to  the  fishing  hut 
with  half  a  dozen  great  fish  upon  your  back  and 
with  your  conscience  hanging  about  the  neck  of 
your  heart,  which  keeps  on  protesting  in  vain  that 
this  was  really  no  day  for  the  fly. 


90  MINNOW  FISHING 

Fortunately,  when  the  water  really  clears,  you 
must  throw  aside  your  wretched  spinning  tackle, 
for — except,  perhaps,  in  the  early  spring — it  then 
becomes  almost  useless,  and  the  fly  is  greatly 
superior  to  it. 

However,  in  a  cold,  wet  season,  when  the  river 
is  in  flood  for  weeks  together,  with  only  odd  days 
when  fishing  is  possible,  the  minnow  can  be  really 
and  legitimately  useful.  Then  in  big,  dark 
waters,  stained  or  muddy  from  the  floods,  you 
should  cast  well  across  the  stream  and  let  your 
minnow  swing  as  deep  in  the  water  as  possible, 
winding  in  the  line  very  slowly,  just  fast  enough 
to  enable  you  to  keep  touch  with  your  bait,  in 
order  to  keep  it  off  the  bottom  and  to  feel  the  least 
sign  of  any  attack  upon  it. 

A  fish  often  takes  the  minnow  with  a  savage 
grab,  but  sometimes  he  takes  it  so  quietly  that 
you  may  think  it  was  merely  some  floating  leaf 
that  has  touched  your  line.  Only  when  you 
make  a  second  cast  and  at  the  same  spot  take  a 
salmon  do  you  know  what  caused  this  tiny  check 
to  the  minnow. 

One  spring  morning  only  a  few  seasons  ago, 
some  idlers  were  hanging  over  the  parapet  of 
the  bridge  that  you  know  very  well  over  our 
lowest  pool,  and  were  watching  an  angler  spinning 
a  big  phantom  minnow  in  the  pool  below  their  feet. 
Suddenly  a  big  fish  of  four-  or  five-and-twenty 
pounds  appeared  out  of  the  black  depths,  followed 
the  minnow  out  of  the  strong  current,  then  seized 


SALMON  TAKING  GENTLY  91 

it  and  slowly  began  to  sink,  plainly  holding  the 
minnow  in  his  jaws.  To  their  amazement  the 
fisher  gave  no  sign  of  having  perceived  anything, 
although  they  knew  that  he  was  fishing  for  that 
very  fish.  They  shouted  to  him,  '  You  Ve  got 
him !  '  and  he  struck  violently,  but  too  late. 
The  fish  had  discovered  the  fraud  and  had  already 
let  go  the  minnow. 

That  incident  was  only  an  extreme  case,  luckily 
not  unseen,  of  an  attack  by  a  salmon  upon  a 
phantom  minnow  which  conveyed  but  the  faintest 
impression,  if  any,  to  the  angler.  I  am  convinced 
that  in  every  kind  of  fishing,  whether  with  fly  or 
bait,  such  things  are  much  commoner  than  most 
fishers  suppose.  A  quick  eye  will,  especially  in 
windy  weather,  often  see  the  flash  of  a  turning 
salmon  which  has  followed  the  minnow  into 
shallow  water  and  has  not  seized  it  in  time.  A 
second  cast  brought  round  more  slowly  will  often 
result  in  a  savage  grab  just  before  the  minnow 
reaches  the  same  place,  or  just  before  it  is  to  be 
lifted  out  of  the  water. 

In  spring,  especially  on  sunny  and  frosty 
mornings,  a  small  and  fast-spinning  minnow 
fished  through  the  most  rapid  streams  will  fre- 
quently kill  fish  in  the  very  lowest  and  clearest 
water.  But  when  fishing  in  clear  water  the 
minnow,  if  you  are  to  do  well,  must  spin  fast,  and 
if  the  water  is  not  only  clear  but  low,  the  faster 
the  minnow  moves  through  the  pool  the  better  is 
your  chance  of  taking  fish.  And  even  in  low — 


92  MINNOW  FISHING 

dead  low — waters  a  minnow,  as  darkness  sets  in, 
may  take  the  shyest  and  the  wariest  salmon. 

TACKLE  FOR  SPINNING 

For  spinning  the  artificial  minnow  or  for  fishing 
with  prawn  or  any  other  bait,  the  best  rod  that  I 
know  is  an  eleven-foot  six-inch  spinning  rod.  If 
made  of  cane  it  will  be  unbreakable,  and  will  also 
be  lighter  and  easier  to  fish  with,  holding  it,  as  you 
have  to  do,  in  one  hand,  whilst  the  other  hand  is 
busy  with  the  reel.  A  split  cane  rod,  built  especi- 
ally for  spinning,  is,  of  course,  the  best,  but  a  cheap 
sixteen-foot  fly  rod  of  whole  cane,  costing  about 
twenty  or  twenty-five  shillings,  does  very  well 
indeed  as  a  bait  casting  or  spinning  rod  if  it  is  cut 
down  to  a  length  of  about  fourteen  feet  to  fourteen 
feet  six  inches,  and  it  is  a  job  that  any  one  can 
do  for  (himself.  One  has  only  to  cut  off  about 
eighteen  or  twenty  inches  from  the  top,  and  tie 
on  the  top  ring  again. 

Then  for  the  reel,  a  '  Silex  '  reel  (which  is  really 
only  the  old  Nottingham  reel,  but  made  of  metal 
instead  of  wood,  and  fitted  with  an  ingenious  brake 
and  check)  is  better  than  anything  else  that  I 
know.  A  newer  reel  of  the  same  type  is  being  sold 
now,  but  I  have  never  used  it.  As  soon  as  you 
learn  the  gentle  upward  swish  that  is  required 
in  fishing  with  such  a  reel,  you  can  cast  a  great 
distance  with  much  ease  and  great  accuracy. 

At  first  you  will  be  much  bothered  by  the  awful 
tangles  caused  by  the  reel  overrunning.  Gener- 


TANGLES  93 

ally  this  has  been  caused  by  your  using  too  much 
force  in  the  throw,  but  a  sudden  and  jerky  start 
is  very  apt  to  produce  overrunning.  The  cast 
should  be  more  a  sweep  than  a  jerk,  and  the  less 
you  attempt  to  guide  the  line  on  to  the  drum  of 
the  reel  the  better.  But  if,  as  you  wind  it  in,  you 
find  the  line  piling  up  on  one  side  of  the  drum,  that 
is  due — unless  you  are  allowing  something  to 
touch  the  line — to  the  reel  not  being  set  on 
perfectly  straight,  and  a  reel  set  even  slightly 
crooked  will  give  immense  trouble,  and  the  real 
cause  is  very  often  not  noticed. 

There  is  one  tip  with  a  badly  overrun  line.  If 
you  try  to  pull  off  the  line  you  generally  end  in 
making  things  worse.  Take  the  drum  bodily  out 
of  the  reel  with  the  tangle  untouched,  and  you  can 
then  very  quickly  throw  off  the  whole  of  the 
tangled  line  and  wind  it  again  on  the  drum.  And 
if  you  don't  know  it  already  it  is  worth  remember- 
ing that  if  you  hold  the  line,  first  with  one  hand 
and  then  with  the  other — winding  on,  say,  twenty 
or  thirty  turns  with  the  right  hand,  then  keeping 
the  drum  in  the  same  position  and  winding  on 
about  the  same  number  of  turns  with  the  left,  and 
so  on — you  will  counteract  the  twist  that  is  given 
with  each  turn  if  you  wind  on  a  string  or  line  over 
the  end  of  a  reel  (or  of  anything  else)  that  is  not 
revolving.  Never  pull  a  tangle. 

As  a  spinning  line,  forty  yards  of  ordinary  dressed 
silk  trout  line,  costing  a  penny  a  yard  or  less,  is 
far  better  and  cheaper  than  the  thick  and  costly 


94  MINNOW  FISHING 

lines  in  sixty  or  eighty  yard  lengths  sold  by  the 
fishing- tackle  shops  as  spinning  lines  for  salmon. 
The  trout  line  has  ample  strength.  With  it  you 
may,  when  using  a  steel  wire  trace,  smash  your 
hooks  in  order  to  free  the  minnow  when  hung  up 
on  a  rock  or  a  stake  ;  and  the  thinness  of  the  line 
is  a  great  advantage  both  for  ease  in  casting  a  light 
bait  and  as  being  less  visible  to  the  fish. 

One  thing  is  vital,  with  every  spinning  line. 
Every  few  hours,  unless  your  line  is  quite  new,  you 
must  test,  by  a  fair  pull  between  your  hands,  the 
last  ten  feet  or  so  of  the  line  next  the  trace,  in 
order  to  see  if  it  has  yet  become  dangerously  worn 
by  the  friction  upon  the  rings  of  the  rod.  If  the 
line  breaks  on  a  fair  pull  between  the  hands,  you 
must  ruthlessly  continue  to  break  pieces  off  until 
you  have  got  rid  of  the  whole  of  the  weakened  part. 
Any  shirking  or  neglect  in  this  respect  may  cost  you 
dear,  for  you  will  probably  lose,  not  merely  the 
trace  and  minnow,  but  a  good  fish  as  well.  Yet 
I  will  make  bold  to  prophesy  that  you  will  neglect 
to  test  it,  and  will  more  than  once  pay  the  penalty 
and  then  realise  full  well  why  you  have  done  so. 

In  this  matter  the  strong,  thick  spinning  line  is 
even  more  dangerous  than  the  thin  trout  line. 
The  latter  looks  thin  and  fragile  and  invites  con- 
stant testing.  The  former  takes  a  longer  time  to 
wear,  in  the  first  instance,  but  when  badly  worn, 
still  looks  thick  and  strong,  and  that  causes  you  to 
forget  the  need  of  frequent  tests. 

Behind  the  spinning  line  you  want  some  backing 


TROUT  LINES  FOR  SPINNING  95 

— forty  to  eighty  yards,  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  rivers  you  are  likely  to  fish — of  thin,  strong  silk 
or  hemp.  Undressed  silk  plait  is  by  far  the 
strongest  and  the  best  for  backing,  if  you  wish  to 
have  a  very  long  line  upon  your  spinning  reel,  but 
a  hundred  yards  of  immensely  strong,  thin  plaited 
hemp  line  can  be  bought  for  ninepence  or  a  shilling. 
As  to  minnows  :  I  always  use  a  phantom  or  else 
a  Devon  minnow.  Natural  bait  of  any  kind,  if 
kept  alive,  is  messy  and  a  nuisance,  and  if  kept 
dead  it  soon  becomes  a  stinking  abomination. 
The  best  phantom  for  dark  water,  so  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  is  Brown's  silk  phantom,  painted 
with  a  blue  back  and  an  ivory  belly,  but  either 
silver  or  gold  colour  does  well  enough  in  place  of 
the  ivory,  although  neither  is  so  conspicuous  in  a 
dark  water  as  the  ivory  colour  appears  to  be. 
For  big  waters  I  use  a  three  and  a  half  inch 
minnow  (that  is,  three  and  a  half  inches  from  the 
snout  to  the  tip  of  the  tail),  and  for  lower  waters 
a  minnow  of  three  inches,  two  and  three-quarter 
inches,  or  even  less.  The  minnow  should  be  leaded 
up  to  the  total  weight  of  half  an  ounce  or  there- 
abouts, but  the  smallest  sizes  cannot  very  well  be 
brought  up  to  this  weight,  and  the  largest  sizes 
may  well  be  a  trifle  heavier.  But  a  weight  of 
half  an  ounce  is  heavy  enough  to  enable  one  to 
throw  the  minnow  easily,  and  it  also  is  enough  to 
ensure  its  sinking  pretty  deeply  in  the  water. 
Do  not  buy  your  phantoms  leaded,  but  buy  a 
pound  of  lead  wire  ;  and  buy  it  at  an  ironmonger's 


96  MINNOW  FISHING 

shop  and  not  from  a  fishing-tackle  maker,  who  will 
charge  you  many  times  the  price  for  it.  Then  cut 
the  lead  wire  into  lengths  and  insert  them  into 
your  phantom  either  through  the  mouth,  beside 
the  swivel,  or  else  through  a  small  hole  cut  with  a 
knife  point  in  the  back  near  the  metal  head. 
You  must  cut  your  hole  in  the  back  of  the  phantom 
rather  to  one  side  of  the  centre  line,  or  you  will 
cut  the  stitches  which  sew  up  the  silken  body,  and 
will  spoil  your  minnow.  The  most  useful  size  of 
lead  wire  is  about  No.  17  British  wire  gauge,  but  if 
your  wire  is  too  thick  it  can  very  easily  be  made 
thinner  by  taking  a  steady  pull  on  the  length 
which  you  are  going  to  cut  up,  when  the  ductile 
metal  will  stretch  and  reduce  its  thickness  to  any 
degree  that  you  may  desire. 

In  order  to  keep  the  loose  leads  from  wearing 
or  breaking  through  the  silken  body  of  your 
phantom  in  which  the  lead  is  contained,  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  tie  round  the  body,  after  the  lead  is 
put  into  it,  a  few  turns  of  stout  thread  or  thin 
twine  at  a  point  about  half  an  inch  above  the  neck 
of  the  tail.  The  tail  itself  I  always  cut  off. 
Neither  the  tail  nor  the  fins  of  a  swimming  fish 
are  visible,  and  the  phantom  seems  to  last  longer 
without  its  imitation  tail,  which  gets  much  knocked 
about  by  the  violent  splash  with  which  the  heav}' 
leaded  minnow  falls  into  the  water  at  each  cast. 
The  metal  fins  also  are  a  weak  point  in  the  design  of 
the  minnow  as  you  buy  it*  One  side  of  them  is 
dark,  and  that  is  right  enough,  but  the  lower  side  is 


PHANTOMS  97 

always  painted  a  brilliant  silver  or  ivory  colour  to 
match  the  belly.  This  does  well  enough  in  black 
or  thick  waters,  but  in  moderate  waters  it  is  a 
great  mistake.  The  fin  of  the  living  minnow, 
when  swimming,  is  not  visible.  The  fin  of  the 
artificial  copy  is  needed  to  make  the  body  spin  so 
as  to  hide  the  fraud  as  much  as  possible,  but  the 
fins  should  be  made  as  inconspicuous  as  possible. 
You  will  find  it  a  great  advantage  to  take  the 
point  of  your  knife  and  scrape  off  all  the  paint  or 
silvering  from  the  lower  side  of  the  fins  so  as  to 
leave  them  as  little  obtrusive  in  colour  as  may  be. 

Several  tackle-makers  have  a  good,  small 
phantom  with  an  olive-coloured  or  dark-greenish 
back  and  a  yellowish  or  ivory  belly — perhaps 
rather  more  like  a  loach  than  a  minnow.  These 
kill  well  in  low,  clear  water  whenever  a  minnow 
will  kill  at  all  in  such  water — that  is,  chiefly  in  the 
spring  or  at  the  fall  of  dusk. 

A  small  minnow,  mounted  as  usual  with  three 
triangles,  is  much  improved  by  removing  the 
triangle  nearest  to  the  head  and  slightly  increasing 
the  length  of  the  gut  by  which  the  middle  triangle 
is  attached.  Usually  both  the  flying  triangles  are 
tied  to  the  same  piece  of  twisted  gut,  so  care  must 
be  taken,  when  removing  one  triangle,  to  see  that 
the  other  is  left  securely  knotted. 

In  any  case  the  spin  of  the  artificial  minnow  is 
improved  and  the  life  of  the  twisted  gut  holding 
the  flying  triangle  is  increased  by  tying  a  turn  of 
thin  string  or  a  few  turns  of  stout  thread  tightly 

G 


98  MINNOW  FISHING 

behind  the  metal  fins  to  prevent  the  flying  triangles 
from  swinging  forward  during  the  cast,  and  so 
catching  the  trace  or  chafing  their  gut  mounts 
against  the  metal  fins. 

As  a  spinning  trace  gut  is  well  enough  for  trout, 
and  it,  of  course,  will  do  for  salmon,  but  it  is  not 
from  any  point  of  view  to  be  compared  with  steel 
wire  as  a  trace  for  spinning  for  salmon.  It  is,  as 
I  think,  better  not  to  use  either  twisted  wire  traces 
or  the  blackened  steel  wire  now  usually  sold  in  the 
tackle  shops.  Plain  piano  wire,  as  sold  by  any 
ironmonger  who  deals  in  piano  wire,  at  the  price  of 
about  sevenpence  a  hank,  is  far  the  best  thing  that 
can  be  got.  Though  of  white,  unlacquered  metal, 
yet  it  is  so  thin  that  in  use  it  alarms  the  fish  less 
than  the  gut  does,  even  in  a  clear  water,  and  its 
strength  is  far  beyond  all  gut  and  beyond  all  needs. 
Each  hank  contains  several  dozen  yards,  and  the 
traces  are  so  cheap  and  so  quickly  made  that  one 
need  never  hesitate  to  throw  away  any  piece  of 
wire  that,  in  the  course  of  playing  a  fish,  has 
become,  as  wire  sometimes  does  become,  twisted 
corkscrew  fashion  or  rendered  uneven  and  un- 
sightly by  many  sharp  bends.1 

For  clear,  low  water  it  is  worth  while,  I  think, 
to  use  as  much  as  six  to  eight  feet  of  wire  as  a 
trace,  but  in  heavy  or  in  stained  water  four  or  five 
feet  of  wire  is  enough.  To  make  a  trace  you  have 

1  As  a  piano  wire  seller  may  not  be  easy  to  find,  I  will  give  you 
the  address  of  one.  I  have  bought  mine  for  many  years  as  No.  3 
music  wire  from  Goddard  of  68  Tottenham  Court  Road. 


WIRE  TRACES  99 

only  to  cut  off  the  required  length  of  wire  and  then 
to  fasten  one  end  to  a  stout  double  swivel  and  the 
other  end  to  the  swivel  in  the  head  of  your  phan- 
tom. To  attach  the  reel  line  to  this  trace  you 
pass  the  end  of  the  line  through  the  other  ring  of 
the  top  swivel — through  the  ring  twice  if  the 
swivel  is  big  enough — then  knot  the  loose  end  of 
the  line  once  round  the  upper  line  above  the  swivel, 
draw  this  knot  tight  and  then  pull  the  sort  of 
running  noose  thus  formed  firmly  home  upon  the 
swivel  ring.  This  knot,  well  tied,  will  stand  any 
strain  and  will  never  slip. 

To  fasten  the  wire  to  the  swivels  one  need  only 
put  the  wire  once  through  the  ring  and  then, 
bending  the  end  back,  twist  it  neatly  four  or  five 
times  round  the  trace  and  then  break  or  cut  off 
the  loose  end  with  a  pair  of  pliers. 

This  leaves  a  neat  little  loop  like  the  bottom  of 
the  figure  6,  as  that  figure  is  usually  written  by 
hand,  and  in  order  to  prevent  this  loop,  on 
receiving  a  strong  pull,  running  up  like  a  slip  knot 
and  jamming  hard  on  the  swivel  ring,  you  should, 
with  your  pliers,  take  hold  of  the  twisted  roll 
above  this  loop  and  as  close  to  it  as  possible,  and 
then  with  a  slight  turn  of  the  pliers  bend  the 
junction  of  the  trace  and  loop  so  that  the  loop 
ceases  to  resemble  the  written  figure  6  and 
becomes  pear-shaped — the  trace  representing  the 
stalk  of  the  pear  and  pointing  into  the  centre  of 
the  loop,  and  no  longer  in  line  with  one  side  of  it. 
Then  the  loop  will  never  slip.  A  small  pair  of 


ioo  MINNOW  FISHING 

cutting  pliers  suitable  for  making  up  and  cutting 
off  this  steel  wire  can  be  got  for  two  shillings  and 
sixpence  from  Buck  of  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
or  of  Holtzapfel,  or  any  of  the  lathe  tool  makers  ; 
but  to  cut  piano  wire  the  pliers  must  be  of  the 
very  best  quality.  With  any  plain  pair  of  small 
pliers,  costing  only  a  few  pence,  the  wire  can  be 
broken  easily  and  neatly  by  a  little  sharp  twisting 
to  and  fro.  Never  use  rusted  wire. 

It  is  worth  knowing  also,  as  a  quick  and  simple 
means  of  cutting  off  from  the  swivels,  in  order  to 
throw  away,  a  damaged  trace,  that  without  any 
tool  you  can  cut  this  thin  wire  by  purposely 
making  a  complete  kink  and  pulling  it  tight. 
Then,  upon  opening  out  the  kink  again,  the  wire 
will  break  without  the  least  effort.  You  would 
think  that  anything  that  can  be  broken  in  such 
a  simple  fashion  must  be  utterly  unreliable  for 
salmon  fishing.  I  thought  so  too  at  one  time,  yet, 
notwithstanding  this  facility  of  breaking,  I  have 
never  had  and  have  never  heard  of  one  single  break 
in  actual  fishing  with  this  wire,  although  I  have 
used  it  for  years  and  have  taken  with  it  at  the 
very  least  a  hundred  salmon.  I  have  tried  wire, 
too,  as  a  trace  for  fly  fishing,  using  flies  with  eyes 
of  metal  instead  of  loops  of  gut  or  of  fiddle-string. 
In  heavy  waters,  where  one  wants  to  use  a  very 
big  fly,  the  wire  trace  is  tolerable,  and  I  dare  say 
that  if  one  got  accustomed  to  it  one  would  fish 
with  nothing  else,  but  it  seems  rather  to  slash 
the  fly  into  the  water,  it  whistles  as  it  flies  through 


MINNOW  TACKLES  101 

the  air,  and  one  misses  the  softness  of  the  fall 
given  by  the  uncurling  gut  cast.  So  much  of  the 
pleasure  of  a  day's  salmon  fishing  consists  in  the 
clean,  easy  stretching  of  your  cast  upon  the  water, 
consists  in  everything  going  '  sweetly/  as  they  say 
of  machinery  that  is  running  perfectly,  that  I  do 
not  think  that  wire  will,  for  a  long  time  to  come, 
supersede  gut  for  fly  fishing.  However,  he  is  a 
rash  man  who  in  these  days  will  prophesy. 

Two  SIMPLE  TACKLES  FOR  NATURAL  MINNOW 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Sometimes  you  may  wish  to 
fish  a  natural  bait  with  a  fly  rod.  There  are  two 
very  good  tackles  for  doing  so.  The  one  is  merely 
a  triangle  (or  two  triangles)  whipped  to  a  strand 
of  stout  gut  which  has  a  loop  made  at  the  other 
end.  You  must  insert  a  baiting  needle  (an 
ordinary  thin  steel  crochet  hook  would  do  very 
well,  or  a  big  darning  needle  with  one  side  of  the 
eye  filed  out)  into  the  natural  minnow  or  loach 
either  at  the  vent,  or,  still  better,  at  the  back 
opposite  the  vent,  and  you  must  bring  the  needle 
out  at  the  mouth  or  the  point  of  the  nose,  drawing 
the  gut  through  after  it  until  the  shank  of  the 
triangle  is  buried  in  the  bait.  You  then  weight 
the  bait  by  thrusting  down  its  throat  either  a 
few  loose  shot  or  else  a  lead  sinker  attached  by  a 
loop  to  the  cast,  so  as  to  slide  down  into  the  bait. 
Though  not  necessary,  it  is  an  advantage,  also,  to 
close  the  mouth  of  the  bait,  either  with  a  twist  of 
fine  wire  put  through  the  lips  or  by  a  stitch  or  two 

G2 


102  MINNOW  FISHING 

with  a  needle  and  thread.  The  bait  is  then  cast 
very  gently  with  the  fly  rod  and  allowed  to  sink 
rather  deep,  and  is  then  played  slowly  by  raising 
and  lowering  the  rod  point. 

You  must  remember  that  this  is  not  a  spinning 
bait.  At  the  most  it  slowly  wobbles.  I  have 
never  caught  a  salmon  on  natural  minnow  myself, 
but  I  have  often  seen  the  natural  minnow,  mounted 
in  this  way,  and  used  by  a  certain  old  fisherman, 
prove  very  killing  in  the  lowest  and  clearest  water 
in  spring  and  early  summer.  Except  for  the 
careful  and  gentle  casting  needed,  and  the  slowness 
with  which  it  is  worked,  the  minnow  is  fished 
exactly  like  a  fly.  The  bait  is  not  swung  out,  but 
is  cast  as  a  fly  is  cast.  In  order  to  avoid  injury  to 
the  bait  it  is  wise  to  use  a  very  slow  recovery  and 
backward  cast,  and  to  avoid  any  jerk  when  the 
f onvard  cast  is  made,  by  waiting  until  you  can  feel 
the  pull  of  the  bait  behind  you  before  you  begin 
the  forward  throw.  You  will  find  this  care 
imperative  if  you  wish  to  cast  anything  heavy, 
whether  it  is  a  bait  or  an  artificial  minnow  or  any 
other  lure  with  a  fly  rod.  Unless  you  delay  making 
the  cast  forward  until  you  can  feel  the  pull  of  the 
weight  upon  the  line  behind  you,  a  violent  jerk  or 
crack  will  be  given  to  the  cast  which  no  tackle  will 
stand  for  long.  Not  only  will  there  be  a  violent 
jerk,  but  the  cast  that  you  make  will  be  a  very 
poor  one.  If  you  wait  until  this  pull  is  felt  the 
line  is  then  at  full  stretch  behind  you,  and  a  fairly 
easy  forward  throw  makes  the  cast  smoothly  and 


CASTING  A  MINNOW  103 

without  a  jerk,  and  covers  a  great  deal  more  water. 
Also  when  casting  a  minnow  or  any  weighted  bait 
with  a  fly  rod  you  should  always  '  shoot '  a  certain 
amount  of  line  just  before  the  minnow  is  about  to 
fall  upon  the  water.  Thus  you  gain  a  double 
advantage.  By  pulling  in  your  line  before  each 
cast  you  shorten  the  line  and  lessen  the  risk  of 
cracking  off  your  bait,  and  the  act  of  shooting  the 
line  in  making  the  forward  throw  ensures  a  much 
softer  fall  of  your  line  and  its  burden  upon  the 
water. 

The  other  method  of  baiting  is  that  used  by 
David  Webster,  who  wrote  The  Angler  and  the 
Loop  Rod,  one  of  the  most  delightful  and  instruc- 
tive books  ever  written  about  fishing.  His 
minnow  tackle,  a  very  ancient  one  in  the  North 
Country,  requires  no  baiting  needle,  and  is  there- 
fore much  more  quickly  and  more  easily  adjusted 
to  the  bait.  It  is  simply  three  round  bend  hooks 
lashed  to  a  strand  of  gut  exactly  like  a  Stewart 
tackle,  one  below  the  other,  with  the  middle  one 
pointing  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  other 
two — back  to  back,  as  it  were. 

You  put  the  top  hook  through  the  head  of  the 
bait,  passing  it  through  the  sockets  of  both  eyes, 
by  which  means  it  has  a  firm  hold  even  in  a  very- 
delicate  bait.  The  middle  hook  you  pass  through 
the  back  fin,  and  the  end  one  you  pass  through  the 
skin  at  the  tail  or  near  it.  The  points  of  the  hooks 
are  all  left  projecting,  and  the  minnow  should  then 
be  slightly  weighted  as  described  for  the  last 


104  MINNOW  FISHING 

tackle.  The  pull  of  the  line  being  from  one  eye, 
the  bait,  which  should  be  left  perfectly  straight, 
will  slowly  wobble  over  and  over  in  a  most  at- 
tractive manner,  and  a  swivel  is,  of  course,  needed 
upon  the  trace.  The  hooks,  though  they  lie  very 
close  to  the  bait,  and  are  not  easy  to  see,  yet  will 
readily  hook  any  fish  that  may  attack  the  bait. 
This  tackle  is  a  most  excellent  one  for  trout 
fishing,  and  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  one  that 
any  angler  can  make  for  himself  who  has  a  few 
hooks  and  some  waxed  thread.  A  small  sinker  of 
lead  or  some  turns  of  lead  wire  a  few  feet  away  helps 
to  keep  the  bait  deep  in  the  water,  but  in  case  of 
need  a  few  small  stones  pushed  down  its  throat  are 
enough  to  sink  the  minnow  sufficiently.  The  tackle 
is  all  the  better  if  the  uppermost  hook  has  the  shank 
shortened  by  snapping  it  off  either  with  a  pair  of 
pincers  or  by  inserting  the  point  of  it  in  some  crack. 
Both  of  these  tackles  are  quite  as  good  for  trout 
as  for  salmon.  But  the  great  trouble  about 
natural  minnow  as  a  bait  is  the  difficulty  of  getting 
minnows  when  they  are  wanted.  We  have  not 
all  got  the  advantages  in  that  way  of  a  certain 
famous  parson  in  the  Yorkshire  dales.  His  clerk, 
having  refused  to  fix  a  christening  for  Tuesday, 
the  mother  is  said  to  have  replied,  '  T'  christening 
must  be  Tuesday  because  t'  cakes  is  made  for 
Tuesday.'  '  Nay !  nay !  '  says  the  clerk, 
*  t'  christening  can't  be  Tuesday,  for  parson 's 
going  fishing  Wednesday,  and  he 's  got  his 
minnads  in  t'  font.' 


XI 

WORMING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — The  worm  is  not  a  thing  that  at 
all  times,  and  in  all  places,  is  effectual  as  a  means 
of  killing  salmon.  Its  utility  as  a  bait  seems  to 
differ  in  an  extraordinary  way  upon  various  rivers. 
In  Norway,  in  bright,  low  water,  the  worm  often 
kills  when  nothing  else  except  a  prawn  is  of 
the  least  use.  And  in  many  British  and  Irish 
rivers  the  worm  is  used  with  success  when  other 
methods  fail.  Still,  I  have  only  once  caught  any 
salmon  upon  a  worm.  On  September  6,  1902,  I 
reached  the  river-side  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  found  that  a  dead  low  water  had 
given  place  to  a  small  but  exceedingly  muddy 
flood.  Heavy  thunderstorms  higher  up  the  valley 
had  washed  the  dusty  roads  and  had  swept  the 
mud  into  the  river.  So  muddy  was  it  that  when 
the  upper  part  of  one's  brogues  were  just  under 
water  the  toes  could  not  be  seen  at  all  through  the 
four  or  five  inches  of  yellow  water  that  covered 
them.  The  dogcart  that  brought  me  had  already 
gone  home  before  I  saw  the  river  or  I  should  have 
gone  home  in  it ;  as  it  was,  I  lit  a  pipe  and  stayed 
to  watch  the  flood  before  getting  off  my  waders 
in  order  to  walk  back.  The  flood  slowly  increased, 


105 


106  WORMING 

but  a  fish  began  rising  again  and  again  near  the 
bank  and  in  a  place  where  I  knew  that  the  water 
could  not  be  more  than  about  three  feet  deep.  I 
determined  that  he  should  be  offered  a  worm  if  one 
could  be  got.  Some  men  working  in  a  field  close  by 
lent  me  a  spade,  and  with  it  four  large  lobworms 
were  soon  dug  up  in  a  damp,  grassy  hollow.  They 
were  then  bunched  on  a  large  hook  and  fastened 
to  the  gut  cast.  A  good-sized  pebble  was  tied  to 
the  gut  about  eighteen  inches  above  the  worms, 
in  order  to  serve  as  a  sinker,  and  the  whole  was 
then  carefully  dropped  into  the  stream  about 
twenty  feet  above  the  fish,  which  was  lying  within 
a  rod's  length  of  the  bank.  As  soon  as  the  bait 
reached  the  place  where  the  fish  had  been  rising  the 
line  stopped,  trembled  for  a  few  moments,  and  then 
began  to  move  slowly  up-stream  in  the  way  that 
no  fisher  can  possibly  mistake.  I  had  always 
heard  that  the  salmon  should  have  ample  time  to 
gorge  the  worm,  and  so  he  had  it.  It  was  not  until 
a  series  of  little  tugs  began  that  I  struck  firmly 
and  sent  him  flying  wildly  round  the  pool — which 
was  a  little  one.  A  very  few  minutes  of  the 
maddest  rushes  and  splashings  left  me  with  a 
beautiful  little  9  Ibs.  grilse  upon  the  bank.  Look- 
ing into  his  mouth,  the  gut  disappears  down  his 
throat,  and  no  hook  is  visible,  and  no  worm  either 
except  a  bit  two  inches  long  and  still  threaded  upon 
the  gut,  but  about  two  feet  away  from  his  mouth, 
my  pebble  having  gone  long  ago.  So  I  cut  him 
open  in  the  middle  and  I  find,  struck  firmly  into 


SALMON  SWALLOWS  WORMS  107 

his  stomach,  the  naked  hook.  When  it  went 
there  one  cannot  doubt  that  it  had  the  four  worms 
still  upon  it.  Now  there  is  not  one  scrap  of  worm 
to  be  found  inside  him.  Where  and  how  have 
they  gone  ?  You  may  solve  that  question  for 
yourselves  with  the  aid  of  the  bit  of  worm  still 
remaining  on  the  cast.  It  was  certainly  not  there 
when  the  salmon  ate  it.  It  seems  pretty  clear 
that  the  fish  has  vomited  out  the  worms  on  feeling 
the  hook,  and  that  it  has  been  able  to  eject  them 
notwithstanding  that  they  were  partly  threaded 
upon  the  hook.  Once  ejected  out  of  the  salmon's 
mouth,  any  bit  of  worm  still  threaded  upon  the 
gut  will  soon  get  washed  along  the  cast  as  the  fish 
tears  up-stream,  dragging  the  gut  and  line  behind 
him.  But  there  are  some — let  us  say,  the  extreme 
blue  water  school  of  salmon  theorists — who  believe 
that  a  salmon  in  fresh  water  never  eats  anything 
at  all,  but  merely  takes  flies  and  other  food  into 
his  mouth  from  curiosity  or  rage,  or,  perhaps  they 
will  say,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  spitting  it  out 
again.  However  that  may  be,  this  fish  so  far  forgot 
himself  as  to  swallow  those  worms. 

Well,  having  succeeded  beyond  my  hopes  in  this 
muddy  water,  some  more  worms  were  soon  dug  up 
and  put  into  a  broken  bottle,  and  I  began  to  fish 
the  likeliest  spots  with  a  big  bunch  of  lobworms. 
In  about  an  hour,  when  hope  was  almost  gone,  I 
noticed  a  wave  beginning  ten  to  fifteen  feet  below 
and  coming  up-stream  to  the  place  where  I  had 
just  pitched  in  my  worms.  The  wave  advanced 


io8      v  WORMING 

to  meet  the  worms,  and  then  there  was  a  swirl 
under  water,  about  where  the  worms  must  be, 
and,  forgetting  all  my  wise  advice,  I  struck  in- 
stantly. The  hook  caught  in  the  point  of  the  j  aw 
of  a  fish  just  about  the  same  size  as  the  last,  and 
in  another  five  minutes  he  was  duly  landed.  But 
in  this  case  the  worms,  though  somewhat  knocked 
about,  were  all  still  upon  the  hook. 

More  than  once  since  then  I  have  tried  the  worm, 
and  in  bright,  clear  water  as  well  as  in  the  yellowest 
mud,  but  so  far  I  have  never  caught  another  fish 
upon  it,  nor  have  I  had  a  single  nibble  from  a 
salmon.  I  have  caught  a  sea- trout  or  two,  and 
sundry  eels  ;  and  once  a  '  dab '  or  river  flounder, 
about  eight  inches  in  length,  contrived  to  get  the 
lobworm  which  was  on  the  point  of  the  salmon 
hook  into  his  mouth,  and  was  tossed  ashore,  where 
he  was  promptly  eaten  by  my  dog. 

Still  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  in 
many  rivers  worm  is  a  deadly  bait,  and  especially 
in  the  lowest  state  of  the  water.  Henderson,  for 
instance,  in  My  Life  as  an  Angler,  tells  (at  p.  198) 
of  his  taking  with  the  worm  seven  salmon  in  a 
single  stream  of  the  Tweed  one  autumn  morning 
in  the  year  1856.  He  was,  as  his  delightful  book 
shows,  a  most  expert  fisher  of  the  clear  water  worm 
for  trout  in  the  heat  of  midsummer,  and  in  his 
opinion  the  only  worms  that,  as  he  puts  it,  '  have 
power  to  captivate  the  fancy  of  a  salmon '  are  '  the 
green  sickly-looking  dew- worms/  I  don't  know 
how  that  may  be,  but  the  way  to  get  such  worms 


LOBWORMS  109 

in  unlimited  quantities,  if  you  want  them  either 
for  salmon  or,  as  I  used  to  do  as  a  small  boy,  for 
eel  fishing,  is  to  take  out  a  lighted  candle  after 
dark,  and  on  every  lawn  hundreds  of  this  kind  of 
worm  will  be  seen  on  any  dewy  night  disporting 
themselves  together.  But  although  they  are 
stretched  out  at  full  length,  each  has  his  tail  still 
in  the  mouth  of  his  hole,  and  can  flick  himself  back 
out  of  danger  with  the  most  surprising  quickness. 
He  moves  more  like  a  piece  of  stretched  elastic 
than  like  a  slow-moving  worm.  At  first  you  will 
fail  to  catch  two  out  of  every  three  that  you  touch. 
All  you  have  to  do,  however,  is  to  put  your  foot 
lightly  upon  him  before  trying  to  pick  him  up. 
You  can  then  pull  his  tail  out  of  his  hole,  and  once 
that  is  done  you  may  remove  your  foot,  for  he  will 
make  no  further  effort  to  escape.  He  seems  to 
know  that  escape  is  hopeless. 

As  I  have  said,  I  cannot  tell  you  from  any 
personal  success  what  is  the  best  way  to  fish  with 
a  worm  for  salmon — if  you  have  to  come  down  to 
that.  But  I  know  how  it  is  done  with  much 
success  by  the  Norwegian  in  low,  clear  water. 
He  takes  his  stand  at  the  head  of  a  good  running 
stream,  facing  directly  down-stream,  and  with  the 
rod  held  across  his  body  and  pointing  away  from 
the  stream.  He  has  about  a  rod's  length  of  line 
out  with  a  large  bunch  of  worms  at  the  end  of  it, 
and  if  he  has  a  reel  he  often  keeps  a  good  many 
yards  loose  at  the  reel.  Then  he  swings  his  rod 
right  round  in  front  of  him,  finally  releasing  the 


no  WORMING 

loose  line  at  the  reel  and  throwing  the  bunch  of 
worms  as  far  up-stream  as  he  can.  As  they  are 
washed  down  the  stream  he  raises  the  rod  point  to 
keep  the  line  taut  and  thus  keep  the  worms  rolling 
along  the  bottom,  and  he  walks  down  beside  the 
stream  until  his  worms  get  swept  out  of  the  main 
current.  Then  he  pulls  in  his  line  and  repeats 
the  cast  again. 

The  Norwegian  often  uses  no  sinker  of  any  sort, 
but  I  understand  that  in  strong  water  it  is  advis- 
able to  have  a  sinker  about  fourteen  to  eighteen 
inches  from  the  worms,  and  the  best  sinker  is  a 
round  bullet  of  lead  at  least  as  big  as  a  boiled  pea, 
and  for  heavy  waters  it  must  be  larger  than  that. 
The  bullet  should  be  split,  like  a  big  split-shot, 
and  should  be  attached  to  the  salmon  cast  by 
six  inches  of  horse-hair  or  of  cotton  or  of  gut  much 
thinner  than  the  main  cast.  Then  if  the  sinker 
catches  fast  in  the  stones  you  can  break  it  off  and 
save  the  rest  of  your  tackle.  The  worms,  if  a  good 
bunch  be  used,  will  not  often  catch  in  the  stones 
if  you  keep  the  line  fairly  taut,  just  feeling  the 
lead  rolling  along  the  bottom.  It  is  surprising 
how  seldom,  if  you  do  this,  a  good  round  lead 
will  catch  even  upon  a  rocky  bottom. 

In  fishing  with  worm  for  trout — and  I  suppose 
it  is  the  same  for  salmon — next  to  keeping 
out  of  the  fish's  sight,  the  most  important  thing 
that  you  have  to  attend  to  is  to  keep  the  line 
taut  and  stretched  evenly  from  the  rod  top  to 
the  bait,  and  not  to  let  the  worm  be  washed  down 


A  TAUT  LINE  in 

the   stream    '  anyhow '   with    slack   line   in    the 
water. 

I  first  learnt  that  lesson  in  1886  when  sent  out  as 
a  boy  to  fish  a  brook  called  the  Linburn  at  Witton 
in  the  county  of  Durham,  belonging  to  an  uncle, 
with  whom  I  was  living,  and  in  the  charge  of  a 
truculent  black-bearded  keeper  of  his,  known  as 
'  Black  Tom.'  You  never  saw  Tom.  He  stood 
over  six  feet  in  height,  had  a  voice  like  a  bull,  a 
short  curly  beard  of  raven  blackness,  a  big  mouth 
full  of  gleaming  teeth,  and  an  aspect  of  swarthy, 
brawny  fierceness  that  might  remind  you  of  some 
giant  in  Grimm,  or  of  one  of  those  ferocious 
guardians  of  the  way  who  opposed  Christian  in 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  I  hope  that  the  sight  of 
him  impressed  the  local  poachers,  but  I  fear  that  it 
didn't,  for  under  this  fierce  exterior  Tom  had  a 
very  kindly  heart.  He  was  a  nailing  good  shot, 
the  best  that  I  ever  saw  at  a  rabbit  in  covert ;  he 
seemed  to  snap  at  the  mere  quiver  of  a  leaf,  but 
somehow  you  always  found  a  rabbit  lying  near. 
At  winged  game  Tom  was  no  great  performer,  and 
as  to  his  fishing,  it  was  confined  to  worming  the 
streams  after  a  flood.  I  have  known  him  to 
confess  without  a  blush  that  some  shot  found  at 
table  in  a  salmon  that  he  had  sent  up  to  the  house 
were  due  to  his  having  '  had  to '  slaughter  it  with 
a  shot-gun  as  it  passed  under  a  bridge.  However, 
when  the  burn  came  down  in  flood,  Tom  would 
take  down  an  old  string-mended  trout  rod,  get  a 
bag  of  worms,  and  sally  out  to  a  game  that  he 


ii2  WORMING 

thoroughly  knew,  and  a  very  heavy  creel  of  trout 
was  certain  to  be  the  result.  Well,  on  this  day  we 
fished  up  the  stream  on  opposite  sides,  I  being 
generally  rather  ahead  of  Tom.  The  water  was 
quite  cloudy,  and  no  skill  seemed  to  be  required. 
From  the  first  Tom  took  fish  much  faster  than  I 
did.  I  said  I  thought  it  must  be  the  worms,  but 
he  threw  me  over  his  bag  and  took  mine,  and  of 
course  it  made  no  difference  whatever.  I  caught 
only  a  fish  here  and  there,  but  Tom  seemed  to 
find  a  trout  behind  every  stone.  At  last  we  came 
to  a  pool  below  a  waterfall,  and  into  this  Tom  cast 
his  worm  four  times  and  each  time  took  a  good 
trout.  I  was  busily  fishing  opposite  him  and 
getting  never  a  nibble.  I  said,  '  Tom,  I  'm  coming 
round  to  try  your  side.'  '  Ay,  do/  said  he, 
'  but  ye  11  tak  nowt  till  I  tell  ye/  I  did  go  over, 
and  got  nothing  except  a  wretched  little  misery 
that  I  threw  in  again.  Then  Tom  showed  me 
what  was  the  matter.  It  was  that  I  was  fishing 
with  a  slack  line,  and  he  assured  me  that  if  I  kept 
the  line  taut,  as  he  did,  I  should  catch  them  just  as 
easily  as  he.  Tom's  remedy,  like  the  washing  in 
Jordan,  seemed  too  simple  for  anything,  but  I 
tried  it  and  caught  fish  after  fish.  Then  I  went 
back  to  my  side  of  the  pool  where  I  had  found  no 
takers  and  immediately  caught  four  or  five  good 
trout.  When  Tom  showed  me  the  way  to  do  it  I 
had  got  six  fish  and  he  had  got  thirty-five.  Before 
we  left  that  pool  I  had  taken  nine  good  trout  out 
of  it,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  day  managed  to  get 


A  TAUT  LINE  113 

about  half  as  many  as  Tom  did  of  these  chubby, 
lively,  brook  trout,  averaging  about  five  or  six  to 
the  pound. 

It  is  a  lesson  that  I  have  never  forgotten,  and  it 
applies  to  every  kind  of  fishing.  With  a  slack  line 
you  neither  bring  the  fish  to  your  hook,  nor  do  you 
strike  such  as  do  unwarily  come  there. 


H 


XII 

ONE   OF   OUR   BEST   DAYS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Now  away  with  all  this  teaching  : 
come  with  me  to  the  fishing,  and  let  us  go  again 
over  one  of  our  very  best  days.  And  so  that  the 
details  may  be  fresh,  we  will  take  a  day  that  is  not 
only  one  of  our  best,  but  is  also,  at  this  present 
moment,  only  two  days  old. 

Yesterday,  September  6,  1908,  a  flood  stopped 
all  fishing.  This  morning  the  river  is  very  high, 
and  is  black  as  ink  with  the  stained  water  coming 
off  the  peat  that  lies  away  up  on  the  moorlands 
forty  miles  away.  It  is  still  above  fishing  height, 
although  it  has  already  fallen  many  feet. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  dirt  in  the  water,  but  we 
hope  that  it  will  run  down  into  good  order  before 
evening.  It  is  of  no  use  to  make  an  early  start, 
but  there  may  be  a  chance  during  the  morning 
with  a  big  minnow. 

About  ten  o'clock  Godfrey  and  I  go  up  to  the 
fishing  hut.  When  we  get  there  a  drizzling  rain 
is  falling,  the  wind  is  from  the  south-east,  and 
everything  looks  miserable.  We  each  begin  to 
fish  with  a  big  five-inch  phantom  minnow  well 
stuffed  with  bits  of  lead  wire  to  make  it  sink  as 
deeply  as  possible.  We  each  fish  the  quietest 

114 


TWO  FISH  115 

water  that  we  can  find,  going  in  opposite  ways,  and 
you  two  shall  come  with  me. 

For  a  long  time  we  see  nothing.  Then  suddenly 
in  an  eddy,  just  as  the  minnow  is  being  lifted  out, 
there  is  a  slight  swirl  and  a  little  nicking  splash, 
and  some  fish  has  got  the  minnow  and  has  bolted 
out  into  the  current.  Only  a  bull-trout,  I  expect. 
No  !  a  good  fish  it  is  ;  look  at  that  determined, 
vicious  tugging  and  at  the  short,  steel-centred 
rod  doubling  up,  yet  without  bringing  the  fish  to 
the  surface  even  in  that  strong  water. 

Off  he  goes  for  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
and  we  will  take  this  opportunity  of  pulling 
him  down-stream  past  that  great  mass  of  snags 
at  the  next  point,  so  that  we  may  land  him  on 
the  sandy  spit  where  the  Devil's  Water  comes 
into  the  main  stream.  Again  and  again  he 
refuses  to  come  down,  and  fights  his  way  up 
past  the  snags  and  broken  weiring,  but  at  last 
he  is  got  past  the  point  and  is  soon  landed  on 
the  sand,  a  cock  fish  with  many  sea-lice,  but 
already  showing  a  faint  reddish  autumn  colour, 
and  weighing  13  Ibs. 

That  eddy  is  a  find.  We  will  try  it  again.  At 
the  very  tail  of  it,  close  under  the  bank,  '  jug ' 
goes  the  rod  and  we  are  fast  in  another  fish. 
This  fellow  makes  no  trouble  whatever  about  going 
down  past  the  snags  to  reach  a  landing-place. 
He,  like  the  famous  wife  of  Jack  Spratt,  prefers 
exactly  the  opposite  course  to  his  fellow,  and  he 
straightway  bolts  down-stream  and  keeps  on 


u6  ONE  OF  OUR  BEST  DAYS 

tearing  off  the  line  in  repeated  rushes  as  we  run 
down  the  high,  rough  bank  and  scramble  over  a 
fence.  Soon  he  has  reached  and  passed  the 
Devil's  Water  foot  and  is  nearing  the  rapids  which 
are  some  seventy  yards  below  it.  He  means  going 
through  these  rapids  into  the  next  pool,  but  to-day 
we  cannot  cross  the  Devil's  Water  anywhere  near 
its  mouth,  and  so  at  all  costs  he  must  not  go  down. 
Already  he  has  taken  more  than  sixty  yards  of  line, 
and  is  out  beyond  some  formidable  stakes  just 
above  the  rapids.  The  fish  must  break  rather 
than  be  allowed  to  go  any  farther,  so  the  line  is 
seized  and  held  fast.  A  fierce  splashing  struggle 
in  the  glassy  water  above  the  rapid  ends  in  favour 
of  steel  wire  and  sound  tackle,  and  slowly  the  fish 
comes  up  and  out  of  danger.  His  one  great  run 
has  finished  him,  and  within  little  more  than  five 
minutes  of  the  hooking  he  is  gaffed  and  weighed — 
14  Ibs. — a  cock  fish,  and  as  bright  as  new-minted 
silver. 

We  now  put  on  long  waders  and  go  up  the  Devil's 
Water  to  cross  it  and  fish  the  pool  below.  The 
river  is  very  broad,  and  the  Devil's  Water,  though 
high,  is  clear,  so  it  looks  as  if  the  fish  might  see  a 
fly  below  the  junction.  We  go  over  the  pool  with 
a  huge  fly — a  Jock  Scott — and  then  with  a  great 
flaring  yellow  turkey.  When  that  has  proved 
vain  we  return  to  the  spinning  rod.  The  very  first 
cast  yields  a  most  beautifully  shaped  cock  fish  of 
24  Ibs.,  which  must  have  been  lying  in  only  a 
foot  or  two  of  water  at  the  throat  of  the  rush. 


A  SHORT  LINE  117 

There  he  grabs  the  minnow  when  it  has  been 
wound  up  to  within  ten  feet  of  the  rod  point. 
Did  you  see  me  strike  hard  and  firmly,  keeping 
the  rod  low,  and  then  raise  the  rod,  letting  the 
line  fly  off  the  reel  almost  unchecked  ?  When  a 
big  fish  takes  on  a  very  short  line  like  this  you 
must  keep  cool  and  strike  firmly,  and  then  instantly 
and  freely  let  him  have  line,  even  at  the  risk  of 
the  reel  overrunning,  or  of  the  line  being  slack  for 
a  second  or  two.  If  you  try  to  hold  the  fish  on 
this  short  line  you  will  almost  certainly  lose 
him,  and  you  will  probably  damage  your  rod  as 
well. 

A  few  casts  lower  down  the  pool  a  fish  of  14  Ibs. 
seizes  the  minnow  and  is  landed,  and  then  after  a 
long  trial  at  the  very  tail  of  the  pool  a  fish  snatches 
the  bait  and  goes  off  on  a  tremendous  expedition. 
First  he  dashes  madly  round  the  pool,  just  breaking 
the  surface  with  his  tail,  then  he  sets  his  face  for 
the  sea  and  hustles  us  down-stream,  at  a  run,  for 
just  short  of  half  a  mile,  gradually  getting  near  the 
opposite  bank  a  hundred  yards  away,  but  all  the 
time,  or  nearly  so,  keeping  close  to  the  surface  in 
a  most  unusual  way.  He  simply  must  be  foul 
hooked.  Finally  he  stops  running,  and  after  a 
long,  wearisome  jiggering  is  brought  to  shore  and 
gaffed.  He  has  the  tail  triangle  in  the  corner  of 
his  mouth,  but  the  other  triangle  is  firmly  fixed  in 
his  right  pectoral  fin,  taking  the  whole  pull  of  the 
line,  and  that  seems  to  explain  his  activity  and 
the  power  that  he  had  in  the  strong  stream,  though 

H2 


ir8  ONE  OF  OUR  BEST  DAYS 

he  was  by  no  means  a  large  fish,  weighing  only 
12  Ibs. 

It  is  now  two  o'clock,  the  rain  is  still  falling, 
and  wet  through  we  get  back  to  the  fishing  hut  to 
find  that  Godfrey,  though  using  a  precisely  similar 
minnow,  has  been  so  unlucky  as  to  have  had  no 
fish,  not  even  a  run  from  any  fish. 

We  are  both  sick  of  minnowing,  and  we  have 
kept  the  quietest  and  best  pool  till  the  afternoon 
in  order  to  fish  it  with  the  fly.  But  this  wind,  now 
nearly  due  east,  and  the  cold  rain  are  disheartening, 
and  it  is  past  three  o'clock  when  we  begin  again. 
Godfrey  goes  first  with  a  very  big  Dusty  Miller,  and 
we  follow  with  a  small  Jock  Scott.  In  a  moment 
a  fish  snatches  the  Dusty  Miller,  but  the  hook — 
badly  tempered  or  perhaps  lodging  on  a  bone — 
opens  out  and  lets  him  go.  A  big  Popham  is  put 
on.  Five  minutes  later  a  fish  grabs  it,  and  this 
time  takes  both  the  Popham  and  also  half  God- 
frey's cast.  Standing  out  in  the  stream  with 
hands  trembling  with  excitement,  he  ties  on 
another  Popham  at  the  end  of  his  remaining  two 
feet  of  single  gut,  and,  resolving  not  to  strike  again 
in  such  a  stream,  he  begins  anew,  and  after  another 
twenty  casts,  hooks  a  good  fish.  This  time  all 
goes  well,  and  in  due  season  we  gaff  this  fish,  a 
real  beauty  of  18  Ibs.,  and  the  biggest  that  he  has 
caught  so  far.  But  better  is  to  come  for  him. 
Again  he  begins  the  pool — a  very  strong  dub — at 
the  deepest  part,  and  almost  immediately  hooks 
and  presently  lands  a  clinking  good  fish,  weighing 


A  LOST  FISH  119 

20  Ibs.  Meanwhile,  fishing  with  a  small  fly,  we 
have  not  had  even  one  rise,  but  on  making  an 
extra  long  cast  to  a  shallow  ledge  in  midstream, 
there  is  a  big  boiling  rise,  and  the  fly  is  snatched 
almost  as  it  touches  the  water.  The  fish — of 
17  or  18  Ibs. — immediately  begins  flinging  himself 
about — out  of  the  water  and  head  over  heels  in 
all  directions.  After  a  few  minutes  he  changes  his 
tactics  and  bores  across  the  river,  over  many  great 
boulders  which,  in  a  lower  water,  stand  clear  out, 
until  he  finds  himself  right  under  the  willows  that 
fringe  the  bank.  Once  he  is  safely  got  back  into 
the  stream,  but  he  repeats  the  move,  and  this  time 
he  works  his  way  for  eight  or  ten  yards  up-stream 
under  the  fringe  of  willows,  his  tail  breaking  the 
surface  as  he  goes.  Though  the  eighteen-foot  rod 
is  being  held  high,  indeed  with  the  reel  overhead, 
yet  there  is  a  great  length  of  line  out,  seventy  or 
eighty  yards,  and  a  good  deal  is  sagging  in  the 
water  behind  the  fish.  Presently  he  turns  down 
again,  we  feel  the  line  grate  and  catch,  then  we 
see  the  fish  splash,  and  the  line  conies  back  loose 
with  the  twisted  gut  of  the  cast  broken  about 
eight  inches  from  the  reel  line. 

He  is  gone,  and  I  really  think  we  do  not  much 
grudge  him  his  freedom  ;  he  has  been  such  a 
gallant  fighter.  At  least  we  say  so  on  the  spot, 
and  try  to  think  that  we  mean  it. 

Godfrey,  who  had  come  down  to  ply  the  gaff  for 
us,  goes  back  and  instantly  hooks  and  lands  a 
grilse  of  7  Ibs.  This  is  reversing  the  fortunes  of 


120  ONE  OF  OUR  BEST  DAYS 

the  morning  with  a  vengeance.  Since  luncheon 
he  has  got  three  fish  and  lost  two,  and  we  have  not 
landed  one.  So  up  goes  a  big  Jock  Scott  in  place 
of  the  lost  small  one,  and  in  a  very  few  minutes  a 
heavy  pull  under  water  announces  that  the  change 
has  worked.  Godfrey  comes  down  and  presently 
gaffs  for  us  a  good  fish  of  20  Ibs.  Then  he  himself 
begins  to  fish,  and  no  sooner  is  his  line  out  than  a 
fish  quite  close  inshore  snatches  his  last  Popham 
and  breaks  it  off.  Immediately  he  puts  on  the 
nearest  fly  that  he  has  to  the  lost  one,  and  at  once 
gets  hold  of  an  exceedingly  lively  fourteen-pounder 
at  the  very  same  spot,  and  we  hurry  up  the  gravel 
bed  to  watch  the  fun  and  to  gaff  the  fish  for  him, 
anxiously  expecting  to  find  the  lost  Popham  in 
his  jaws.  He  is  landed  right  enough,  but  the 
other  fly  is  not  to  be  found,  though  we  both  feel 
perfectly  certain  that  it  is  the  same  fish  that  took 
the  first  fly.  We  then  return  and  begin  casting 
again  at  the  spot  where  we  had  taken  the  last  fish, 
and  twenty  yards  lower  down  there  comes  a  slight 
touch.  The  cast  is  repeated  and  the  touch 
becomes  a  violent  pull,  and  we  are  fast  in  another 
good  fish.  He  flings  himself  out  once — twice — 
thrice,  and  then  bolts  down  the  long  rapids  into 
the  next  pool.  There  he  wastes  much  precious 
time  in  a  backwater,  refusing  either  to  fight  hard 
or  to  come  near  the  gaff.  However,  Godfrey, 
seeing  the  fight  so  long,  comes  down  in  time  to 
gaff  him  for  me.  He  proves  to  be  just  over  20  Ibs., 
and  he  has  taken  quite  twenty-five  minutes  to 


FLOATING  FISH  HOME  121 

land.  When  we  begin  again  the  darkness  is  fast 
coming  on,  and  we  both  fish  down  our  big  pool 
without  a  rise.  Then,  as  a  last  chance,  we  rush 
off  to  try  the  tail  of  a  pool  higher  up.  Precious 
time  is  wasted  in  getting  there,  but  the  chance 
turns  out  trumps,  and  we  hook  and  safely  land  a 
nice  fish  of  18  Ibs.  It  is  now  past  seven  o'clock 
and  almost  pitch  dark,  though  the  rain,  which  we 
hardly  noticed  in  the  keenness  of  our  fishing,  has 
stopped.  The  dogcart  was  to  meet  us  at  the  cross- 
roads at  a  quarter  to  seven,  and  it  is  hopeless  to 
think  of  taking  all  these  fish  so  far,  so  we  must  be 
content  to  get  them  to  the  fishing  hut  and  leave 
them  there  for  the  night.  But  here  are  eight  fish 
averaging  about  16  Ibs.  apiece,  and  we  are  half  a 
mile  above  the  hut.  Well,  Godfrey  carries  down 
the  rods  and  baskets  and  I  tie  a  stout  cord  through 
the  jaw  of  one  fish,  then  string  the  other  seven  upon 
the  cord  and  simply  wade  down  the  half-mile  of 
water,  towing  the  fish  behind  me.  The  night  is 
very  dark,  and  as  one  wades  down,  most  of  the 
time  waist  deep  in  the  dark  river  under  the  wooded 
banks,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  these  eight  big 
fish  are  still  upon  the  string.  In  the  water  they 
weigh,  of  course,  absolutely  nothing,  though  out  of 
it  they  weigh  together  a  good  deal  more  than  a 
hundredweight.  Time  and  again  one  pulls  them 
to  the  surface  to  convince  oneself  that  they  are 
really  there,  and  yet  in  a  few  minutes  the  same 
curious  conviction  returns  upon  you  that  most  of 
them  must  have  slipped  off  by  some  means.  It 


122  ONE  OF  OUR  BEST  DAYS 

makes  one  realise  a  little  better  the  folly  of  holding 
up  a  tired  salmon — as  one  so  often  sees  people  do — 
in  such  a  way  that  his  head  and  shoulders  are 
practically  lifted  out  of  the  water.  Many  a  fish, 
and  more  especially  many  a  grilse  and  small 
salmon,  have  we  lost  in  this  way.  To  you,  my 
boys,  I  would  say,  Never  hold  the  head  of  any 
salmon  or  large  fish  out  of  the  water,  however 
tired  he  may  be.  When  reeled  up  short,  if  the  fish 
is  on  the  surface,  don't  hold  the  rod  point  above 
him,  but  hold  it  sideways  or  down-stream,  so  that  it 
does  not  lift  him  upwards.  If  the  rod  is  lifting 
any  part  of  the  fish's  weight — that  can  only  be  so 
if  some  part  of  the  fish  is  being  held  above  water — 
then  every  kick  that  the  fish  gives,  makes,  as  he  falls 
back,  a  very  sudden  twanging  jerk  on  the  line  and 
on  the  rod  top,  and  if  the  hold  is  at  all  weakened 
by  the  fight  it  will  almost  certainly  give  way. 
After  the  first  few  struggles  that  follow  the  taking 
of  the  fly  there  is  no  stage  of  the  fight  at  which  so 
many  fish  are  lost  as  that  in  which  the  tired  fish 
is  resisting  the  final  efforts  to  bring  him  to  shore, 
and  the  cause  of  loss  is  almost  always  a  plain  and 
preventible  want  of  care.  One  forgets  that  on  a 
very  short  line  the  jerks  are  ten  times  more  sudden 
and  more  severe  than  they  are  when  there  is  a 
fair  length  of  line  out  and  the  rod  is  not  doubled 
up  like  half  a  hoop. 

Well,  to  return  to  our  catch.  Here  we  are  at 
the  fishing  hut.  Candle-ends  are  lighted,  the  fish 
are  laid  out  on  the  floor,  waders  are  taken  off  and 


SEPTEMBER    7TH,    1908 


THE  TOTAL  123 

rods  taken  down,  and  we  hasten  off  to  the  dog- 
cart and  so  home  to  mulled  claret  and  hot  baths, 
and  a  dinner  that  we  are  almost  too  tired  to 
eat. 

It  has  rained  and  blown  all  day,  and  next 
morning  a  flood  in  the  river  greets  our  earliest 
waking  eyes.  So  the  fish  are  sent  for  and  brought 
home  and  are  carefully  weighed,  and  there  being 
nothing  to  do  at  the  river  we  pass  the  time  away 
by  laying  out  the  whole  catch  upon  a  grassy  bank 
and  taking  a  photograph  of  them. 

We  have  rather  blessed  that  flood  since  then,  as 
without  it  we  should  not  have  had  the  photograph 
by  which  to  remember  that  day.  You  may  see  it 
next  this  page.  Godfrey's  fish  weighed  20,  18, 
14,  and  17  Ibs.  ;  ours  24,  20,  20,  18,  16,  14,  14,  13, 
and  12  Ibs.  His  four  weighed  59  Ibs.  ;  our 
nine  151  Ibs.,  an  average  of  just  upon  17  Ibs. 
apiece. 

Before  this  we  had  once  taken  nine  salmon  and 
two  bull-trout  in  a  day,  but  the  salmon  were  not 
such  good  fish  as  these,  and  the  bull-trout  hardly 
count.  These  fish  were  all  beauties.  Just  look 
at  them  !  I  think  that  fish  of  24  Ibs.,  which  you 
see  near  the  middle  of  the  picture,  is  as  well  shaped 
and  as  hog-backed  as  you  could  wish  any  salmon, 
and  so  are  the  three  twenty-pounders  on  the  right 
of  him. 

For  real  joy  of  success  I  do  not  think  that  this 
day  could  compare  at  all  with  my  best  spring  day 
with  five  salmon  landed  on  the  fly  and  two  more 


i24  ONE  OF  OUR  BEST  DAYS 

fish  lost,  or  even  with  four  fish  taken  on  a  day  in 
March  or  April,  but  still  it  was  a  great  day,  and 
there  was  one  glorious  hour  in  it,  for  I  have  never 
known  fish  take  the  fly  more  madly  than  these  did 
during  a  part  of  that  miserably  cold  afternoon, 
although  most  of  the  rises  did  not  come  my  way. 
The  rain  pelted  steadily,  and  the  wind,  veering 
from  south-east  to  east  and  then  to  north-east, 
blew  more  or  less  in  our  faces  all  day  ;  the  river 
was,  as  we  usually  think,  too  high  for  the  fly,  yet 
the  fish  that  afternoon  would  not  be  denied.  It 
was  a  glorious  piece  of  luck,  and  all  the  more  so 
because  it  was  wholly  unexpected.  I  hope  that 
you  may  both  be  lucky  enough  to  find  such  days, 
but  they  will  not  be  many,  so  fish  hard,  and  put  on 
a  good  big  fly  after  a  flood.  One  other  thing  I 
have  to  say,  don't  be  discouraged  by  rain  or  by  an 
east  wind — why,  perhaps  the  very  best  day's 
salmon  fishing  of  which  we  have  any  record  was 
the  9th  of  April  1795,  when  the  tenth  Lord  Home, 
fishing  on  the  Dee,  took  thirty-eight  salmon,  of 
weights  ranging  from  6  to  36  Ibs.,  on  his  own 
fifteen-foot  rod.  One  has  read  of  catching  grilse 
on  the  Grimersta,  like  troutlets,  by  the  score,  but 
Lord  Home's  day,  even  allowing  for  a  large  number 
of  kelts,  which  were  all  lawful  fish  in  those  days, 
is,  to  my  mind,  a  far  greater  performance.  And 
that  9th  of  April  of  the  year  1795  was  a  rainy  day, 
with  an  east  wind  blowing.  I  wonder  what  salmon 
fisher's  mind  fails  to  bridge  that  hundred  years. 
Can't  you  see  the  rain  pattering  on  the  grey  water, 


APRIL  1795  125 

ruffled  by  a  cold  wind,  and  a  stout-hearted  angler, 
long  ago  crumbled  into  dust,  yet  still,  with  his 
short  rod  and  his  thick  hair  line,  fishing  envied  of 
us  all  ?  I  think  that  it  is  the  matter-of-fact 
description  of  ill  weather  on  that  long-past  day 
that  brings  it  so  vividly  to  the  eye. 


XIII 

ON   OTTERS  AND   OTHER   POACHERS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — There  are  two  kinds  of  otters 
that  come  or  may  come  within  the  range  of  an 
angler's  vision.  Both  are  notorious  as  poachers, 
but  the  one  otter  is  a  living  thing,  the  other  is  an 
inanimate  device  of  wood  and  lead.  The  use  of 
the  latter  in  this  country  is  illegal,  though  it  is  far 
from  being  unknown,  but  in  Norway  and  Sweden 
you  may  find  one  or  more  of  them  by  the  side  of 
every  lake  that  has  fish  in  it — or  at  least,  if  you 
don't  find  them,  it  will  not  be  because  the  otters 
are  not  there. 

This  otter  is  simply  a  piece  of  board  about 
eighteen  inches  to  two  feet  long  and  six  to  eight 
inches  deep,  with  a  keel  of  lead  fastened  along  one 
side  of  the  board  to  make  it  ride  in  the  water 
upright  on  that  edge.  Then  the  line  is  fastened 
to  the  board  just  as  the  string  is  fastened  to  a  kite. 
The  thing  is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  a  water  kite,  and 
by  walking  along  the  shore  and  towing  the  line 
the  '  otter '  is  made  to  run  out  on  the  surface  of 
the  lake  and  to  travel  along  nearly  parallel  to  the 
shore,  whilst  the  flies,  which  are  tied  to  the  line  at 
intervals,  bob  and  dribble  along  the  surface  of  the 


126 


AN  'OTTER'  BOARD  127 

water  in  a  way  that  is  most  tempting  and  most 
fatal  to  the  fish.  The  first  time  that  I  saw  an 
otter  at  work  was  on  my  earliest  visit  to  Norway 
over  ten  years  ago.  On  the  strength  of  reports  of 
trout  many  and  big  to  be  had  in  a  certain  lake 
among  the  mountains  on  the  edge  of  the  Hardanger 
Vidde,  I  and  another  had  taken  our  rods  and  made 
a  toilsome  journey  into  the  hills  along  the  vilest 
track  that  you  can  conceive.  No  one  but  a  Norse- 
man would  have  called  it  a  path  at  all.  At  last  we 
sighted  our  El  Dorado,  a  lonely  pool,  very  narrow 
and  about  a  mile  long,  with  the  left-hand  edge 
lying  against  the  foot  of  a  rocky  cliff,  whilst  the 
other  bank  was  formed  by  a  gentle  slope  of  moor- 
land covered  with  patches  of  cloudberries.  One 
solitary  native  was  to  be  seen  close  to  the  lake. 
Presently  we  sighted  this  wretched  little  board 
sailing  merrily  along  abreast  of  him.  Our  disgust 
was  great,  but  was  tempered  with  the  hope  of 
actually  seeing  for  ourselves  the  exceeding  de- 
structiveness  of  this  famous  poaching  dodge. 
We  approached  the  native  and  tried  our  whole 
stock  of  Norsk  upon  him.  I  will  spare  you  the 
details  of  it,  but  the  end  of  it  was  that  the  native 
said  something  unintelligible,  then  clapped  his 
breeches-pocket,  thrust  in  his  hand,  and  drew  out 
a  wet  and  bleeding  trout  weighing  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound.  Then,  chiefly  by  signs,  we 
learnt  that  he  lived  in  a  saeter  close  by,  that 
there  were  very  few  fish  in  the  lake,  and  that  this 
was  an  unusually  big  one,  and  that  he  would  be 


128    ON  OTTERS  AND  OTHER  POACHERS 

very  glad  to  see  us  catch  something.  We  tried 
hard  to  oblige  him,  but  could  only  produce  two 
sizeable  trout,  and  it  was  small  wonder,  for  we 
saw  that  our  friend  had  made  quite  a  path  along 
the  edge  of  the  lake  by  his  daily  tramping  to  and 
fro  with  his  infernal  engine.  The  day,  however, 
was  not  quite  a  failure,  for  we  took  our  revenge 
upon  his  cloudberries  (multa  baer),  and,  whilst  I 
think  of  it,  my  boys,  let  me  tell  you  never  to  accept 
— at  least  without  the  most  careful  questioning — 
a  Norseman's  report  of  good  trout  fishing  to  be  had 
in  any  lake  or  river.  He  has  no  idea  of  misleading 
you,  but  it  only  means  that  he  has  heard  of  some 
one  who,  possibly  with  a  net  or  perhaps  a  dozen 
night  lines,  has  once  caught  a  good  basket  of  trout 
in  that  water.  But  if  you  ask  him  in  detail 
whether  he  himself  has  seen  fish  caught  there, 
whether  it  was  with  the  fly  or  with  '  sleuk ' 
(minnow),  how  many  the  fish  were  and  how  long, 
and  how  often  he  has  known  such  catches  made  and 
in  what  months,  he  will  try  to  answer  you  quite 
truthfully,  and  you  can  then  divide  the  result  by 
two  and  hope  for  the  best.  But  as  for  the  Norse- 
man himself,  if  he  looks  a  good  fellow,  take  him 
with  you  fishing,  or  climbing,  or  stalking  the 
reindeer — or  what  you  will — and,  taking  him,  treat 
him  like  a  brother,  and  you  will  gain  a  friend 
who  will  never  flatter  you  and  will  never  forget 
you,  and,  what  is  more,  a  friend  whose  staunch 
loyalty  and  frank,  uncringing  manliness  you  will 
never  forget.  At  least  that  has  been  many  times 


NORWAY  129 

my  good  fortune  with  them,  and  I  believe  it  to  be 
in  no  way  unusual. 

And  now,  my  boys,  whilst  I  am  speaking  of 
Norway,  let  me  give  you  one  piece  of  advice. 
When  you  go  amongst  people  who  are  poor  and 
who  live  simply,  as  they  do  in  Norway,  always  be 
on  the  watch  to  see  that  you  are  not  trespassing 
on  their  kindness,  and  are  not  expecting  them  to 
do  things  for  you  that  they  would  never  think  of 
doing  for  one  another.  Remember  that  the 
customs  of  one  country  are  not  those  of  another, 
and  be  careful  to  see  that  you  give  no  unnecessary 
trouble,  and  do  everything  for  yourself.  Never 
forget  the  truth  that  was  once  expressed  in  his 
own  way  by  a  Maori  chief  when  he  said,  after  he 
had  known  Bishop  Selwyn,  '  Gentleman  gentle- 
man not  mind  what  he  do ;  piggy  gentleman 
always  very  particular.'  You  may  talk  about 
'  manners  makyth  man  '  ;  I  think  that  savage 
chief  got  a  great  deal  nearer  to  the  true  heart  of 
things  when  he  picked  out  this  as  his  test  of  the 
real  and  the  pinchbeck  article  in  gentlemen. 

And  it  is  not  only  in  Norway  that  you  '11  find 
this  useful.  Nothing  has  caused  more  misunder- 
standing— on  both  sides — in  our  Colonies  and  in  all 
new  countries  than  the  perfectly  innocent  and 
unwitting  assumption  that  you  will  have  every- 
thing done  for  you  just  as  it  is  in  England.  Many 
a  man  has  found  to  his  vexation  that  his  host  or 
his  host's  daughters  were  cleaning  his  boots  for 
him  because  he  was  obviously  expecting  or  even 


130  ON  OTTERS  AND  OTHER  POACHERS 

asking  for  them  to  be  done,  and  the  servants, 
following  the  custom  of  the  country,  absolutely 
declined  to  touch  them.  Even  in  the  hotels  you 
may  put  your  boots  outside  your  door,  but  no  one 
cleans  them.  You  just  take  brown  boots  and 
clean  them  yourself,  and  you  keep  your  eyes  open 
for  other  little  things  of  the  same  kind,  and  very 
difficult  it  is  to  see  them. 

However,  to  return  to  the  otter,  we  have  learnt 
since  then  that  its  evil  reputation  does  not  belie 
it  and  that  it  can  kill  fish.  We  were  again  to- 
gether in  Norway  last  year,  and  coming  over  the 
fjeld  we  saw  a  man  carrying,  in  loops  of  string, 
what  we  at  first  took  to  be  two  large  bunches  of 
grey  ptarmigan.  When  we  got  nearer  we  saw  that 
his  burden  was  nothing  but  fish.  There  were  some 
eight  or  ten  fine  trout,  the  least  weighing  a  pound 
and  a  half,  four  weighing  about  4  Ibs.  apiece,  and 
one  that  must  have  been  well  over  5  Ibs.  He 
told  us  that  he  had  caught  them  with  the  otter 
which  he  was  carrying  and  in  a  lake  a  few  miles 
away,  across  the  mountains,  and,  as  you  may 
believe,  we  took  down  its  name  and  address  pretty 
carefully.  He  said  that  he  had  caught  them 
all  in  a  very  short  time,  and  then  had  to  stop 
fishing  because  he  had  already  got  more  fish  than 
he  could  carry. 

And  now  of  our  English  otters.  I  have  said 
that  they  are  notorious  as  poachers,  but  I  believe 
that  their  ill-fame,  so  far  as  salmon  goes,  is  largely 
undeserved.  Stories  about  finding  brilliant  new- 


OTTERS  AND  SALMON  131 

run  salmon  on  the  river-bank  with  a  small  piece 
bitten  out  of  the  shoulder  by  an  otter  are  common 
in  books  on  fishing,  but  I  have  fished  for  twenty 
years  in  rivers  where  otters  were  abundant,  where 
one  saw  them  constantly,  and  where  one  may  see 
their  fresh  seal  in  the  sand  every  day,  and  I  entirely 
disbelieve  that  they  do  any  serious  harm  to  salmon. 
Perhaps  in  a  small  stream,  or  in  the  spawning 
season  when  fish  are  weak,  the  otters  may  catch 
and  devour  a  weak  or  dying  fish  or  a  badly  mended 
kelt.  Even  that  is  not,  I  think,  very  common, 
though  it  is  always  dangerous  to  make  positive 
generalisations  from  one's  own  limited  experience. 
I  have  known  one  case  where  several  otters  had 
eaten  and,  from  the  fresh  blood  and  scales  lying 
about,  seemed  also  to  have  killed  a  big  salmon. 
Once  I  saw  the  fresh  body  of  a  bull-trout  kelt  of 
6  or  7  Ibs.  which  for  some  days,  and  once  before 
my  eyes,  was  visited  and  partly  eaten  by  an  otter, 
but  whether  he  had  killed  it  or  not  I  cannot  say. 
He  had  certainly  not  either  killed  or  found  it 
where  it  lay,  on  a  grassy  bank  some  eight  feet 
above  the  river.  Several  times  I  have  known 
them  to  eat  the  carcasses  of  dead  kelts  which  they 
had  certainly  not  killed,  and  once — in  September 
1908 — I  marked  the  daily  eating  of  a  salmon  of 
about  1 6  Ibs.  weight  which  I  saw  to  be  a  stale, 
dead  fish  the  day  the  otter  ate  the  first  small  piece 
of  him.  After  three  days  the  carcass,  still  with 
only  some  5  or  6  Ibs.  eaten  away,  was  carried 
straight  across  a  swift  pool  and  left  half  out  of  the 


132  ON  OTTERS  AND  OTHER  POACHERS 

water  on  the  opposite  side  whence  two  days  later 
it  was  washed  away  by  a  flood. 

The  first  of  these  occasions,  when  I  think  that  the 
otters  had  really  killed  their  salmon,  was  in  1902, 
a  season  of  great  drought.  The  river  was  very 
low,  and  disease  began  to  appear  amongst  the  fish 
in  the  shape  of  whitish  spots  of  fungus,  like  the 
mould  that  grows  upon  jam,  which  appeared  on 
the  head  or  gill  covers  of  the  fish.  That  autumn 
I  found  by  the  water  the  bodies  of  four  fish  on 
which  otters  had  certainly  been  feeding,  but  I 
could  see  nothing  to  determine  whether  or  no  they 
had  been  taken  whilst  alive ;  certainly  they  all  were 
diseased.  But  on  October  3,  beside  the  rush  at 
the  head  of  a  very  strong  pool  I  came  upon  a  mass 
of  pellets  of  spawn,  fresh  blood  and  scales,  together 
with  the  two  pectoral  fins  of  a  big  salmon.  Several 
large  stones  had  been  displaced,  the  sand  was  much 
torn  up,  and  I  could  see  the  marks  of  several  otters. 
It  looked  as  if  a  great  battle  had  taken  place  there, 
and  of  the  two  fins  left  one  had  a  large  piece,  the 
shape  and  size  of  an  otter's  mouth,  bitten  clean 
out  of  the  end  of  it.  The  head,  bones,  and  the 
rest  of  the  carcass  were  nowhere  to  be  found, 
though  I  made  a  careful  search.  However,  some 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  above  the  place  there  is  an 
otter's  holt  under  the  roots  of  a  bunch  of  alders, 
and  on  some  stones  near  that  I  found  some  more 
pellets  of  spawn,  so  I  have  little  doubt  that  the 
body  had  been  carried  up  there  to  feed  the  cubs. 
On  comparing  the  pectoral  fins  with  those  of  a 


FISH  EATEN  133 

i5-lb.  salmon  caught  the  same  day  it  was  plain 
that  the  fish  killed  by  the  otters  had  been  con- 
siderably larger  than  this,  if  it  also  was  a  salmon, 
but  the  pectoral  fin  of  a  bull-trout  is  larger  than 
that  of  a  salmon  of  equal  weight.  I  can  hardly 
think  that  the  fish  could  have  been  strong  and 
well.  The  kill  had  taken  place  beside  and  near 
the  head  of  a  very  strong  stream  where  one  would 
think  that  the  fish  would  have  every  chance  of 
escape,  or  at  any  rate  would  have  carried  the  otters 
down  the  pool  a  very  long  way  before  they  could 
have  landed  him. 

In  that  year  I  saw  more  signs  of  otters  eating 
salmon  than  in  all  the  other  twenty  and  more  that 
I  have  fished,  and  I  believe  that  to  have  been  due 
to  the  weakness  of  the  fish  caused  by  disease,  and 
that  most  of  these  fish  were  dead  or  dying  when 
taken  by  the  otters. 

Being  addicted  to  fishing  both  early  in  the  morn- 
ing and  late  in  the  evening,  I  have  often  had  the 
good  fortune  to  see  the  otters  fishing.  Once  a  fine 
dog  otter  swam  up  to  me  and  landed  almost  at  my 
feet,  and  on  one  October  evening  at  sunset  I  had 
lifted  my  right  foot  to  step  upon  what  I  took  for 
a  brown  lump  of  wood  lying  amongst  some 
rubbish  beside  a  log,  when  the  lump,  which 
was  an  otter  lying  asleep  there,  suddenly  sprang 
into  the  river — almost  causing  me  to  fall  in  after 
it.  In  1889,  on  the  Ure  in  the  North  Riding 
of  Yorkshire,  a  pair  of  otters  came  up  over  a  rapid 
and  began  fishing  the  shallows  at  the  foot  of  the 

12 


134     ON  OTTERS  AND  OTHER  POACHERS 

pool  where  I  was.  Luckily  they  did  not  see  me, 
and  by  lying  along  the  trunk  of  an  overhanging 
tree  I  had  a  good  view  of  their  fishing  for  nearly 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  another  fisherman 
appeared,  and  the  otters  both  went  down-stream. 
Again,  on  the  river  Tyne  on  June  14,  1905,  with 
your  Uncle  D'Arcy,  we  saw  an  otter  in  broad  sun- 
light about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  busily 
fishing  amongst  the  rocks  opposite  to  us.  He 
swam  round  each  boulder,  keeping  his  head  poked 
under  the  edge  of  it ;  several  times  he  found  a  hole 
big  enough  to  allow  him  to  dive  right  under  the 
rock  and  come  up  on  the  other  side.  After  some 
ten  minutes  he  caught  an  eel  about  fourteen  inches 
long  and  as  thick  as  one's  thumb.  This  he  brought 
out  on  to  a  big  flat  rock  and  there  he  ate  it.  All 
this  time  we  were  in  full  view  of  him,  and  I  was 
not  twenty-five  yards  away,  and  the  sound  of  his 
teeth  tearing  the  eel  to  pieces  was  plainly  audible 
to  us.  It  seemed  a  remarkably  tough  and 
leathery  morsel,  too,  for  it  sounded  like  tearing  up 
an  old  boot.  Next,  the  otter  went  up  the  stream, 
crossed  it  to  our  side  and  then  came  across  the 
gravel  bed  to  get  to  some  willows,  but  finding 
D'Arcy  in  front  of  him  he  went  back  to  the  water 
and  swam  across  and  disappeared.  A  quarter 
of  an  hour  later  he  came  out  from  some  bushes, 
crossed  the  river  about  sixty  yards  above  us,  and 
began  fishing  in  the  very  shallow  water  on  our 
side  of  it.  I  put  down  my  salmon  rod  and  began 
to  stalk  him.  Every  time  he  put  his  head  under 


CATCHING  AN  OTTER  135 

water  I  pressed  on,  and  when  he  thrust  his  head 
out  to  breathe  I  stood  stock  still.  At  last,  much 
to  my  surprise,  I  got  within  ten  feet  of  him  and 
could  see  everything  that  he  was  doing,  could  see 
him  dashing  in  among  the  tiny  fry  collected  in 
the  shallows.  Then  he  poked  his  head  under  the 
edge  of  a  flat  stone.  I  advanced  a  couple  of  steps, 
and  as  he  came  up  to  breathe  he  saw  me.  I 
jumped  forward  and  raked  him  ashore  with  the 
gaff,  which  had  a  cork  on,  but  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
of  steel  projected  through  it.  The  point  of  the 
gaff  caught  in  the  loose  skin  of  his  flank,  but  the 
hide  is  so  tough — as  you  know  who  have  seen 
otters  killed  by  hounds — that  the  gaff  did  not 
pierce  it,  but  I  was  able  to  swing  him  off  the 
ground  and  grab  him  by  the  tail.  By  that  I  carried 
him  kicking,  twisting  up,  and  snapping  to  the  bank 
and  thence  to  the  fishing  hut,  where  we  shut  him 
up  until  the  next  day,  when  we  brought  up  the 
ladies  to  see  him  released.  On  finding  himself 
free  again  he  ran  in  a  great  hurry  to  the  water, 
but  once  there  he  seemed  quite  confident,  swam 
steadily  up  the  shallows  and  then  landed  and 
disappeared  in  a  holt. 

He  was  a  small  dog  otter,  weighing  perhaps 
12  to  15  Ibs.  At  first  we  had  thought  he  was 
either  blind  or  else  blinded  by  the  sunlight,  but 
when  he  was  caught  we  could  see  nothing  wrong 
with  his  eyes,  and  his  extraordinary  lack  of  caution 
must  have  been  due  either  to  the  bright  sun  or, 
as  I  have  since  been  inclined  to  think,  he  may 


136     ON  OTTERS  AND  OTHER  POACHERS 

possibly  have  been  at  some  time  tamed  or  made  a 
pet  of.  But  we  could  never  hear  of  there  being 
any  tame  otter  in  the  district,  still  less  of  any  such 
having  been  lost.  However  that  may  be,  he  gave  us 
a  most  interesting  and  delightful  view  of  an  otter's 
methods  of  fishing.  His  methodical  quartering  of 
the  ground  was  wonderful,  and  when  he  caught 
the  eel  it  hardly  wriggled  at  all ;  he  seemed  to 
have  paralysed  it  at  once  with  his  bites. 


XIV 

SOME   MORE   POACHERS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — I  have  said  that  otters  are  not  a 
serious  danger  to  a  full-grown  salmon.  His  real 
foes  are  seals  and  porpoises  in  the  sea  and  netsmen 
on  the  coasts  and  in  the  rivers.  But  far  worse 
than  all  these  together  are  the  scoundrels  who,  in 
defiance  of  the  law  and  of  the  rights  of  their  neigh- 
bours, openly  or  secretly  discharge  poison  and 
pollution  into  our  streams. 

The  seals  and  porpoises  are  a  very  real  danger. 
In  one  season  during  which  I  was  fishing  in  the 
river  Tyne,  one  out  of  every  five  fish  taken  on  the 
water  was  marked  with  more  or  less  severe  gashes 
and  tooth  marks,  and  in  all  the  rivers  on  the  north- 
east coast  fish  showing  wounds  from  that  cause 
are  not  uncommon.  But  the  net  fisher  in  the  river 
itself  is  an  even  more  deadly  foe  to  the  spring  and 
early  summer  fish,  for  those  are  the  slow-running 
fish,  dawdling  in  the  tideway  and  in  the  lower 
reaches,  and  the  nets,  where  they  are  numerous, 
mop  up  the  majority  of  such  fish.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  in  many  rivers  which  are  not  great 
'  spring  '  rivers,  only  a  small  proportion  of  the 
fish  which  spawn  in  them  in  winter  come  in  at  all 
as  spring  fish  during  the  course  of  their  lives. 


137 


138  SOME  MORE  POACHERS 

Such  as  do  run  in  spring  are  the  very  best  fish  of  the 
whole  lot,  the  best  in  condition  and  the  boldest  and 
strongest  fighters  of  the  whole  year,  yet  we  do  our 
very  utmost  to  kill  them  out  by  allowing  netting 
which  is  practically  continuous,  in  the  lower  reaches 
of  the  rivers.  For  the  small  weekly  close  time  is 
not  enough  to  let  the  slowly  running  spring  fish 
get  past  all  the  netting  stations.  Those  fish 
which  habitually  come  into  the  rivers  in  September 
or  later  escape  the  river  nets  altogether,  but  we 
steadily  do  our  best  to  eliminate  all  the  fish  which 
have  the  habit  of  running  in  spring  or  summer. 
Just  consider  how  slowly  these  fish  run  and  how 
they  are  exposed  to  the  dangers  of  the  nets  in  the 
lower  reaches  of  a  river.  In  the  close  time  before 
the  season  of  1897  began,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
clean  spring  fish  were  marked  in  the  river  Spey. 
Of  these  sixty-seven  were  retaken  after  the 
season  opened  ;  thirty-four  of  them  had  moved  up 
the  river,  twenty-five  had  dropped  down,  and 
eight  were  recaptured  at  or  about  the  places  at 
which  they  had  been  marked. 

In  most  rivers,  at  any  rate,  I  do  not  think  that 
fair  and  ordinary  rod  fishing  levies  any  very 
appreciable  toll  upon  the  salmon  when  compared 
with  the  numbers  of  fish  coming  into  the  river. 
On  one  lucky  day  a  single  net  will  not  unfrequently 
take  as  many  salmon  as  are  taken  with  the  rod  in 
a  whole  season  on  some  of  the  best  rod  fishings  of 
the  river,  and  in  a  single  week,  when  fish  are  run- 
ning, the  various  nets  may,  and  often  do,  take  as 


HUMAN  POACHERS  139 

many  fish  as  fall  to  rod  and  line  in  that  river 
throughout  the  whole  season.  But  perhaps  it  is 
not  easy  to  be  just  when  one  sees  fifteen  or  twenty 
beautiful  spring  fish  struggling  in  the  meshes  of  a 
net,  or  hears  of  twelve  hundred  salmon  and  sea- 
trout  as  the  total  for  a  week's  fishing  at  one  netting 
station  on  one  of  our  smaller  rivers,  or  of  from 
one  to  two  thousand  fish  coming  into  the  Tay 
Fishery  Company's  fish-houses  in  one  day  at 
certain  times  of  the  year. 

Human  poachers  on  the  spawning  beds  and  in 
the  moorland  streams  still  do  a  good  deal  of 
damage.  In  the  Teviot,  for  instance,  one  party 
from  Hawick  was  caught  in  November  1908  with 
over  a  hundred  salmon  in  sacks  on  the  bank,  all 
taken  out  with  the  gaff.  I  have  been  told  by  a 
veteran  poacher  of  the  head-waters  of  the  river 
Eden  that  the  first  fish  arrive  in  the  moorland 
streams  as  early  as  the  end  of  September,  and 
that  during  October  and  early  November  his  sport 
with  torch  and  cleek,  or  leister,  is  at  its  best,  and 
the  fish  are  good  eating,  at  least  if  kippered  ;  but 
that  as  soon  as  hard  frost  sets  in  the  fish  become 
soft  and  their  flesh  poor  and  sludgy,  and  that  after 
that  they  are  not  worth  taking.  That  may  be  the 
view  of  the  superior  craftsman,  but  the  weaver  or 
the  pitman  or  the  youthful  yokel  has,  I  fancy,  few 
scruples,  and  cares  little  whether  the  fish  that  he 
gets  are  or  are  not  fit  for  the  food  of  pigs.  The 
excitement  of  the  sport  and  the  risk  of  being 
captured  themselves  make  the  fish  caught  taste  at 


140  SOME  MORE  POACHERS 

any  rate  tolerable,  just  as  the  vivid  green  apple 
does  to  the  schoolboy  who  has  '  bagged '  it  from 
an  orchard  long  before  the  fruit  is  at  all  fit  to 
eat. 

Formerly  the  salmon  spear  or  the  clodding 
(throwing)  leister  were  the  usual  weapon  even  of 
the  solitary  poacher,  and  there  was  something  of 
wild  dignity  about  their  open  defiance  of  the  law, 
but  now  the  more  common  poacher  is  a  hero 
who  sneaks  about  the  river-banks  carrying  in  his 
hand  a  stick,  ostensibly  a  walking-stick  or  staff, 
and  in  his  pocket  a  gaff  hook  and  some  stout  string. 
Once  a  fish  is  spotted  within  his  reach  the  harmless 
stick  quickly  becomes  a  gaff,  and  can  as  quickly 
resume  its  humbler  form  if  any  watcher  or  keeper 
should  appear.  The  old  hand,  apprehensive  of 
searching,  takes  care  to  hook  the  gaff-head  into 
the  lining  of  his  coat  or  into  part  of  his  clothing. 
Quite  recently  an  amusing  letter  in  the  Field 
related  the  conviction  by  Cumberland  justices  of 
an  old  poacher  of  eighty  whose  pockets  had  been 
twice  carefully  searched,  but  who  still  taunted 
the  keeper  to  have  another  look.  The  third  search 
did  it.  The  hook  with  the  string  wet  was  found 
at  the  old  rascal's  back  hanging  from  the  fork  of 
his  braces. 

A  bullet  from  a  Mannlicher  or  from  a  .303  rifle 
is  a  very  effective  instrument  for  poaching  a 
salmon,  and  this  is  not  unknown  to  some  sky- 
larking deerstalkers  in  the  North  of  Scotland. 
But  in  the  crystal  clear  rivers  of  Canada  and  of 


A  RIFLE  BULLET  141 

New  Zealand  many  salmon  or  great  trout  die 
every  year  by  shooting.  The  fish  are  not  hit  by 
the  rifle  bullet — that  is  quite  unnecessary.  They 
are  generally  picked  up  without  a  mark  on  their 
bodies,  stunned  apparently  by  the  shock  caused 
by  the  bullet  striking  the  incompressible  water 
in  their  direction.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  owing  to 
the  refraction  of  the  rays  of  light  on  passing  from 
water  to  air,  the  fish,  when  seen  from  the  bank  or 
from  any  position  except  one  directly  above  him, 
is,  as  you  know,  not  exactly  in  the  place  that  he 
seems  to  your  eye  to  occupy,  but  is  really  lying  a 
little  deeper  in  the  water.  You  know  that  if  you 
put  a  stick  slanting  into  the  water  you  see 
it  appear  to  bend  upward,  though  one  knows 
that  it  must  go  straight.  The  bullet,  too,  on 
striking  the  water  at  an  angle  is  deflected,  and, 
unless  you  can  shoot  at  the  fish  from  directly 
above  him,  it  is  a  matter  of  considerable  difficulty 
to  hit  him.  That,  however,  the  sporting  farmer 
in  those  two  Dominions  has  found  to  be  un- 
necessary, and  so,  in  out-of-the-way  districts,  you 
may  see  him  take  down  his  rifle  in  the  most 
matter-of-fact  way  to  go  out  and  shoot  a  fish 
for  your  supper. 

Quis  custodiet  ipsos  custodes?  The  temptations  of 
river  watchers  to  do  a  little  poaching  on  their  own 
account  are  great.  They  have  to  spend  long  days 
and  longer  nights  on  unfrequented  river-banks, 
and  when  they  see  a  salmon  lying  in  some  place 
where  it  would  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world 


142  SOME  MORE  POACHERS 

to  take  him,  and  where  nobody's  fishing  would  be 
injured,  it  is  not  much  to  be  wondered  at  if  they 
sometimes  look  the  other  way  whilst  a  friend  takes 
the  salmon,  or  even  if  they  take  him  themselves. 
A  certain  sporting  parson  that  I  know  well  lives 
in  a  house  just  above  the  end  of  an  ancient  high- 
pitched  stone  bridge  that  spans  a  famous  salmon 
pool.  One  evening  only  two  or  three  years  ago, 
about  midnight,  he  heard  a  tap  on  his  study 
window,  and  a  parishioner  whispered  to  him  that  he 
thought  the  house  was  being  watched  by  burglars 
as  he  had  for  a  long  time  seen  two  men  skulking 
under  the  shelter  of  a  wall  at  the  foot  of  the  parson's 
garden.  The  parson  went  out  with  him  and  found 
that  the  men  were  gone,  but  saw  a  light  on  the 
water  under  one  of  the  arches  of  the  bridge. 
After  a  little  time  the  light  moved  to  the  other  side 
of  the  river  and  the  parson  went  across  the  bridge 
to  reconnoitre.  On  the  way  over  whom  should  he 
meet  but  the  river  watcher  employed  by  the 
Salmon  Conservancy  Board  in  company  with  the 
village  policeman,  and  carrying  with  them  a  fine 
spring  salmon.  A  very  few  days  afterwards  these 
two  worthies  found  that  a  change  of  air  was  needed 
for  the  benefit  of  their  health.  This  little  incident 
is  a  trifle  disquieting,  but  I  believe  that  on  the 
whole  the  police  and  the  river  watchers  are  men 
who  do  their  duty  often  far  away  from  all  help  and 
when  the  general  feeling  of  the  dwellers  by  the 
moorland  streams  is  pretty  strongly  on  the  side 
of  the  poachers.  Then  it  is  due  to  the  efforts  of 


SEAGULLS  143 

the  police  and  the  watchers  alone  that  the  salmon 
have  any  chance  of  spawning  in  safety. 

But  there  is  one  form  of  poacher,  and  in  my 
opinion  about  the  worst  of  all,  which  no  watcher 
deters  and  no  law  restrains,  but  which,  on  the 
contrary,  is  protected  and  encouraged  by  the  law, 
I  mean  the  seagull  of  every  species.  Ever  since 
the  Wild  Birds  Protection  Acts  have  been  ex- 
tended to  include  them,  the  seagulls  have  increased 
by  leaps  and  bounds.  As  late  as  1889  your  great- 
grandfather could  write  that  on  the  Tees  seagulls 
seldom  came  far  inland.  Now,  on  all  the  rivers 
of  the  east  coast  flocks  of  forty,  fifty,  or  a  hundred 
gulls  are  the  commonest  of  sights  at  the  time 
when  the  young  parr  or  brandlings  and  the  smolts 
are  crowded  in  the  shallows.  Such  a  flock  will 
hover  over  the  shallows ;  the  frightened  little 
fishes  dash  hither  and  thither,  quick  enough 
perhaps  to  escape  from  one  foe,  but  falling  an 
easy  prey  to  the  multitude  of  their  enemies.  The 
lesser  black-backed  gull  generally  breeds  on  inland 
waters,  and  they,  like  the  rest,  have  increased 
enormously  in  numbers.  Every  Londoner  knows 
how  they  have  increased  upon  the  Thames  and  in 
the  parks  of  late  years.  Uncounted  thousands  of 
these  gulls  are  to  be  found  nesting  on  the  shores 
of  the  lakes  and  tarns  near  the  upper  waters  of 
our  salmon  rivers,  and  thence  they  fly  in  great 
flocks  and  resort  to  the  streams  for  food.  Many 
times,  when  fishing  in  spring  and  early  summer,  I 
have  seen  a  flock  of  these  gulls  pitch  upon  the 


144  SOME  MORE  POACHERS 

shallows  among  a  shoal  of  parr  or  of  smolts,  and 
have  seen  the  little  fish  caught  and  eaten  literally 
by  hundreds,  and  I  think  it  almost  impossible 
to  exaggerate  the  damage  done  by  the  operation 
of  this  foolish  and  misdirected  law.  Under  its 
'  Orders  '  rare  and  beautiful  birds  were  constantly, 
until  very  recent  days,  unprotected,  yet  the  most 
mischievous  and  destructive  of  our  commoner 
birds,  and  in  particular  the  gulls,  have,  under 
its  protection,  increased  ten-thousandfold. 


XV 

THE   LAST   DAY   OF   A   SEASON 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — The  last  day  of  any  season — 
that  is  to  say,  the  last  that  one  can  spend  at  the 
river — is  always  a  day  full  of  great  hopes,  and,  of 
course,  they  are  generally  unfulfilled.  But  for 
various  reasons  the  last  day  that  I  could  give  to 
the  river  in  1908  was  a  day  without  much  hope  for 
an  angler,  but  yet  it  proved  a  good  day,  marked 
with  a  white  stone,  by  reason  of  a  lucky  chance. 
For  the  river  was  very  low  indeed,  and  the  weather 
hot,  still,  and  misty.  There  were  fish  in  plenty 
in  the  pools,  but  on  the  Tuesday  I  had  had  but  one 
rise,  and  that  on  a  trout  fly,  from  a  fish  which  was 
weighed  out  nearly  an  hour  later  at  19  Ibs.  On  the 
Wednesday  also  I  had  one  rise  only  and  again  on  the 
trout  rod  and  some  trout  flies,  which  I  had  taken 
to  in  despair  of  moving  a  fish  with  the  salmon  rod. 
At  the  very  tail  of  a  long  stream  a  big  fish 
rose  and  quietly  sucked  in  the  dropper,  a  tiny 
black  fly  with  a  bright  orange  hackle.  I  suppose 
that  the  gut  was  '  necked/  or  else  I  held  him  too 
hard,  for  I  felt  the  hold  break  and  he  was  gone. 
No,  he  has  taken  it  again — no  doubt,  really,  it  has 
by  some  chance  taken  him.  He  flings  himself 
out,  and  then  madly  bolts  down  the  stream,  turns 

K 


146          THE  LAST  DAY  OF  A  SEASON 

up  again  and  rushes  past  under  the  very  point  of 
the  rod,  the  line  swishing  in  the  water,  and  the 
frail  little  rod  quite  helpless  to  check  him  in  any- 
thing that  he  may  choose  to  do.  He  chooses  to 
bolt  to  the  gravel  bed  behind  me,  then,  finding 
himself  upon  the  stones  with  his  back  out  of  water, 
he  splashes  round  and  starts  for  the  opposite  side. 
There  is  sixty  yards  of  line  on  the  reel  and  the  trout 
gut  is  new  and  strong,  but  as  he  nears  the  other 
bank  the  reel  has  only  fifteen,  ten,  five  yards  left, 
and  now  I  can  give  him  only  a  few  turns.  I  try 
all  the  rod  will  bear  to  stop  him,  but  he  goes 
straight  in  among  the  lower  branches  of  the 
willows  growing  on  the  opposite  bank,  and  there 
he  flounces  about  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  then 
the  line  comes  back  with  both  flies  gone.  I 
think  that  the  fish  must  have  had  the  gut  cast 
across  his  jaws  when  the  dropper  broke  off,  and 
then  the  tail  fly  being  pulled  up  towards  his  mouth 
must  have  caught  in  his  eye  or  in  some  very  tender 
spot.  The  way  in  which  he  rushed  ashore  first 
on  one  side  of  the  water  and  then  on  the  other 
seemed  to  show  that  he  was  blinded  with  pain  or 
fright,  and  he  was  a  good  fish,  too,  of  16  or  17  Ibs. 

Well,  a  solitary  and  rather  fluky  rise  on  each  of 
the  two  preceding  days  did  not  give  much  hope  of 
success  on  the  Thursday,  especially  as  I  had  to 
leave  the  water  at  two  o'clock  to  catch  my  train 
southwards. 

I  got  all  my  packing  done  early  and  began  to  fish 
at  ten  o'clock  in  a  swift  run  at  the  head  of  a  long 


A  FLUKE  147 

pool  where  I  knew  that  a  number  of  good  fish  were 
lying.     About  the  tenth  cast  a  large  fish  jumped 
just  as  the  line  was  stretched  out  to  fall  upon  the 
water,  and  I  saw  that  the  fish  fell  right  across  the 
line  about  twelve  feet  from  the  fly.     At  once  I 
struck,  as  I  have  done  dozens  of  times  before  when 
a  fish  has  jumped  or  risen  over  the  line.     This  time 
my  luck  was  in,  for  I  felt  the  drag  on  the  line,  and 
the  fly,   a  half-inch-long  green  heckam-peckam, 
struck  firmly  in  something  that  I  felt  sure  must  be 
the  '  tummy '  of  that  fish.     Instantly  he  set  all 
doubts  at  rest  by  flinging  himself  out,  with  a 
violent  wriggle  in  the  air,  then  falling  back  and 
bolting  up  and  down  and  to  and  fro  in  the  very 
swiftest  and  shallowest  part  of  the  stream,   so 
that  three  or  four  times  I  thought  that  he  had 
broken  away,  and  that  the  loose  line  coming  back 
to  me  had  neither  fish  nor  fly  at  the  end  of  it. 
Then  he  decided  to  splash  his  way  up  the  rocky 
rapids  to  the  next  pool,  and  no  sooner  had  he  got 
to  it  than  round  he  came  to  my  side  of  the  stream 
and  dropped  down  the  edge  with  his  back  fin  out 
of  water,  until,  catching  sight  of  Tom  Falshaw  on 
the  bank  waiting  with  the  long  gaff,  he  turned  out 
into  deeper  water  and  bolted  back  to  the  place 
where  he  was  hooked.     There  he  stayed  for  a  few 
minutes,   slowly  boring  his  way  up  the  strong 
water,  and  then  swinging  back  again  with  a  dash, 
only  to  bore  up  again.     Presently  he  seemed  to 
decide  that  streams  were  doing  him  no  good,  and 
he  dropped  quickly  down  the  pool  to  fight  out  the 


148 

rest  of  this  battle  in  quiet  water.  And  a  long, 
stubborn  fight  it  is,  in  which  he  tries  to  rid  himself 
of  this  accursed  thorn  in  the  flesh.  Not  a  minute 
of  it  do  I  grudge  on  such  a  hopeless-looking  day  as 
this,  and  it  is  a  full  forty-five  minutes  before  he  is 
gaffed,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  lower  down  the  river. 
He  is  a  little  red — for  is  it  not  October  the  8th  ? — 
but  a  thick  and  handsome  fish,  and  he  weighs 
19 J  Ibs.  The  little  fly  is  hooked  into  his  left 
ventral  fin.  It  has  split  the  fin  down  for  half  an 
inch  or  more,  but  seems  then  to  have  got  a  firm 
hold.1 

Back  we  go  to  fish  the  pool  very  carefully,  but 
without  a  touch.  Then  again,  with  a  gay  salmon 
fly  a  full  inch  in  length,  and  then  we  try  a  dull 
brown  little  fly  with  a  dun  turkey  wing  in  a  long 
stream  above.  Half-way  down  the  pool  a  small 
fish  of  7  Ibs.  takes  it,  and  is  safely  landed  after 
a  brief  splashing  struggle.  Then  we  fish  the  pool 
again  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  without  a  rise. 
A  good  fish  and  a  grilse  have  been  throwing 
themselves  out  again  and  again  in  the  quickest 


1  This  was  a  lucky  fluke,  and  I  have  told  you  of  a  still  greater  fluke 
in  my  letter  on  spring  fishing  (at  page  71),  but  I  once  witnessed 
the  capture  of  a  salmon  in  a  way  even  more  astonishing.  In  the 
summer  of  1896  I  was  fishing  a  pool  down  after  another  angler — Mr. 
Charles  Liddell,  of  Warwick  Hall,  Cumberland — who  was  casting 
from  the  other  side  and  wading  far  out  in  the  stream.  We  both 
stopped  fishing  about  the  same  moment  and  I  began  to  walk  up  the 
bank,  when  I  heard  a  shout  and  saw  him  picking  up  a  fine  grilse  of 
6  or  7  Ibs.  As  he  waded  out  of  the  stream  the  fish  had  risen  in 
shallow  water,  and  on  his  coming  to  the  place  it  had  rushed  ashore. 
It  was  deeply  marked  by  the  meshes  of  a  net  through  which  it  had 
obviously  forced  its  way  only  a  few  days  before. 


MORE  LUCK  149 

rush  at  the  throat  of  the  pool.  We  will  try  them 
once  more  before  we  go,  for  two  o'clock  is  now  close 
at  hand.  Sure  enough  in  the  shallow,  tumbling 
water  one  of  them  takes.  Luckily  it  is  the  big  one, 
and  he  puts  up  a  great  fight,  rushing  madly  to 
every  part  of  the  pool,  once  even  fouling  the  line 
round  a  rock  close  to  the  far  bank.  Fortunately 
this  stone  is  mossy  and  the  line  runs  freely  round 
it,  and  presently  the  fish  struggles  on  the  surface, 
the  line  gives  a  flick  and  a  twang,  and  we  see  it 
come  free  from  the  stone,  bringing  away  with  it  a 
little  tuft  of  moss,  which  for  several  minutes 
dangles  in  the  air.  After  this  he  soon  tires  and 
in  a  few  minutes  is  on  the  gravel  dead  beat  with 
his  wild  struggle  ;  it  is  not  more  than  six  or  seven 
minutes  from  the  hooking,  I  feel  certain,  yet  he 
is  a  beautiful  bright  cock  fish  and  weighs  16  Ibs. 

There  remains  only  time  for  a  few  hasty  casts  in 
the  best  places  as  I  go  up  the  river  to  meet  the 
dogcart,  and  in  an  hour  or  two — and  at  this  very 
moment  at  which  I  write — I  am  flying  southward 
with  three  good  fish  packed  in  cool  ferns  and 
bracken  lying  in  the  guard's  van. 


K  2 


XVI 

MY   BEST   FISH 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — My  best  fish — so  far,  may  I  say 
without  touching  wood — was  no  great  monster. 
Four-and-twenty  pounds  it  was  for  a  long  time, 
and  then  for  some  years  a  fish  of  28  Ibs.  held  the 
field.  In  1904  it  became  32  Ibs.,  and  now — this 
last  week  '  as  ever  was  ' — his  place  has  been  taken 
by  a  fish  of  34  Ibs.  But  he  is  nothing  to  feel  very 
proud  of,  because  he  was  taken  on  the  minnow, 
with  a  trace  of  steel  wire,  and  so  his  last  gallant 
battle  was  but  brief  and  brutal. 

The  twenty-four  pounder  was  the  best  sports- 
man of  the  lot.  He  was  a  beautiful  spring  fish, 
his  back  blue-grey  and  his  sides  of  burnished  silver, 
and  with  that  peach-coloured  or  rose-pink  irides- 
cence over  the  glistening  under  sides  that  you 
never  see  upon  a  late  autumn  fish.  Yet  he  was 
taken  on  the  28th  of  October.  A  big  flood  had 
lasted  for  a  week,  and  the  river  had  begun  to  run 
clear,  though  it  was  still  very  high.  On  the  27th 
I  had  touched  a  fish  on  the  fly,  but  had  done 
nothing  else.  It  was  a  perfect  day  for  a  minnow, 
but  I  used  no  minnow  in  those  days.  I  began  on 
the  28th  at  the  same  spot,  and  immediately  got  a 


150 


AN  OCTOBER  SPRING  FISH  151 

heavy  pull  from  this  fish,  but  the  hook  got  no 
hold,  and  he  could  not  be  induced  to  come  again. 
All  day  I  fished  blank,  and  about  five  o'clock  I 
returned  to  give  my  friend  another  trial.  When  I 
reached  him  I  felt  the  faintest  draw  on  the  line, 
yet  it  was  a  quite  slow  draw  such  as  only  a  good 
fish  can  give.  I  made  the  same  cast  again,  and 
this  time  with  a  snatch  he  made  sure  of  his  fly. 
The  current  ran  strong,  and  the  very  butt  seemed 
to  creak  as  the  top  of  the  rod  was  dragged  down 
to  the  water.  Like  so  many  strong  fish  that  are 
well  hooked,  he  didn't  show  himself  at  first,  but 
kept  deep  down  in  the  water,  and  after  a  few 
moments  of  heavy  '  jagging  '  he  began  steadily  to 
bore  his  way  up  the  stream.  In  five-and-twenty 
minutes  he  showed  himself  but  once,  and  then  it 
was  only  one  sudden  leaping  somersault  about  ten 
minutes  after  he  had  been  hooked.  At  last  his 
strength  began  to  fail  and  I  tried  to  strand  him 
on  the  gravel  bed,  but  every  time  that  he  touched 
the  stones  he  turned  and  splashed  out  into  deep 
water,  and  stubbornly  refused  to  be  coaxed  to 
shore  again.  The  rod  was  a  most  powerful  steel- 
centred  cane  rod,  and  I  knew  that  the  tackle  was 
strong,  so  I  did  not  spare  him  in  the  least,  and  I  can 
remember  to  this  day  how  my  left  arm  ached  with 
the  cramped  strain  of  holding  the  rod  so  hard 
against  him.  However,  at  last,  after  five-and- 
thirty  minutes  of  the  severest  treatment  that  I 
ever  remember,  he  was  safely  stranded  and  lifted 
out  by  the  tail.  I  had,  of  course,  seen  for  some 


152  MY  BEST  FISH 

time  that  his  whole  colouring  was  very  unusual, 
and  each  time  that  he  had  stranded  upon  the 
shallows  I  had  noticed  that  his  wet  back  showed 
as  a  sort  of  warm  yellowish  grey — like  the  wet  back 
of  a  great  trout,  and  entirely  unlike  the  colour  of 
the  autumn  fish,  which,  even  at  their  brightest, 
show  a  dark  and  rather  dull-looking  back  as  they 
are  drawn  on  to  the  shallows.  But  until  I  saw 
this  fish  out  of  the  water  I  had  never  thought  of 
the  chance  of  taking  a  clean  spring  fish  at  that  time 
of  year,  and  I  could  hardly  believe  my  eyes  when 
I  saw  him  shining  before  me  with  that  unmistak- 
able rosy  pink  bloom,  and  his  fins  and  tail  standing 
out  in  contrast  almost  as  black  as  ink.  Well,  he 
was  a  cock  fish,  and,  as  I  have  told  you,  he  weighed 
24  Ibs.  He  had  taken  a  fly  that  I  had  made  the 
night  before — a  silver  body  with  a  pale  blue  hackle 
and  a  plain  dark  mallard  wing — and  he  was  sent 
off  to  a  very  young  lady  who  is  now  your  mother  ; 
and  I  believe  that  she  thought  then  that  I  caught 
fish  just  like  that  every  day. 

For  a  good  many  years  24  Ibs.  was  my  best. 
I  caught  fish  of  22  Ibs.  and  23  Ibs.  often,  I  caught 
even  several  of  24  Ibs.,  but  I  could  go  no  higher. 
At  length  in  the  course  of  one  season  I  rose  first  to 
25j,  then  to  26J,  and  then  to  28  Ibs.  The  twenty- 
five  pounder  I  caught  as  a  small  flood  was  rising. 
A  week  later,  when  it  had  fallen  again,  and  the 
water  had  become  dead  low,  so  low  that  for  days 
we  had  caught  no  salmon,  I  was  fishing  one 
evening  with  a  very  light  double-handed  sea-trout 


A  TROUT  FLY  153 

rod,  a  trout  cast,  and  a  small  green  heckam- 
peckam  fly,  about  the  size  of  a  large  March  brown, 
when  I  saw  the  flicker  of  a  big  tail  in  the  shallow 
rushing  water  right  at  the  throat  of  a  pool.  I  got 
into  the  river  well  above  the  place  and  fished  down 
to  it  almost  inch  by  inch,  for  I  knew  that  the  fish 
must  be  lying  just  where  the  water  deepened,  and 
that  the  fly  would  almost  touch  his  nose.  What- 
ever it  did  he  took  it.  There  is  little  to  be  said 
about  the  next  hour  and  five  minutes.  There 
never — or  very  rarely — is  hard  or  quick  fighting 
with  a  heavy  salmon  on  a  light  rod  in  a  big  pool 
where  the  fish  has  plenty  of  sea-room.  I  was  as 
gentle  as  possible,  merely  doing  my  best  whenever 
he  grew  quiet  to  urge  him  to  keep  up  his  struggles. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  I  floated  him,  dead  beat 
and  lying  on  his  side,  on  to  a  sand-bank  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  below  the  place  where  he  was  hooked, 
and  there  lifted  him  out.  He  was  a  cock  fish  and 
weighed  26J  Ibs.,  and  the  hook  of  the  little  green 
fly  had  opened  out  a  good  deal,  but  I  keep  it  as 
a  pattern  ;  many  salmon  have  since  died  upon 
copies  of  it.  The  twenty-eight  pounder  was 
caught  in  September  and  upon  the  rising  water 
of  a  flood.  He  had  been  fished  for  in  vain  for 
many  days,  but  had  been  hooked  and  lost  that 
same  morning.  Fortune  must  have  been  smiling 
that  day,  for  the  line  was  badly  '  knuckled  '  above 
the  cast,  and  though  it  was  strained  almost  to 
breaking-point  in  turning  the  fish  away  from  some 
logs,  yet  it  held  then,  although  it  snapped  like 


154  MY  BEST  FISH 

rotten  thread  when  tested — as  you  must  always 
do — after  the  big  fish  was  landed. 

It  was  several  years  before  I  got  to  30  Ibs. 
Then  one  day  in  a  heavy,  muddy  flood,  on  a  river 
on  which  we  were  guests,  two  of  us  had  been  fishing 
with  fly  and  minnow  all  day  on  the  only  pool 
quiet  enough  to  offer  us  any  chance  of  a  fish. 
At  five  o'clock  we  decided  to  give  it  one  last  turn 
with  the  phantom,  and  in  that  turn  my  big  fish 
boiled  up  at  the  minnow  on  the  shallow  tail  of 
the  pool.  He  missed  the  minnow,  but  turned  and 
rushed  after  it  along  the  top  of  the  water  and  seized 
it  a  few  yards  farther  on.  I  was  wading  waist- 
deep,  and  as  soon  as  I  had  got  back  on  to  the 
shallows  the  fish  flung  himself  out  of  the  water. 
None  of  your  wild  somersaults,  but  a  stately  dive, 
head  first  out  and  in  again,  like  that  which  one  sees 
done  by  each  one  of  a  school  of  porpoises  as  they 
dive  into  the  air  out  of  the  side  of  a  wave  and  pop 
in  again  in  the  trough.  I  saw,  and  said  on  the 
spot,  that  he  must  weigh  30  Ibs.,  and,  as  you  may 
suppose,  I  was  very  careful  with  him.  But  care 
does  not  mean  easing  the  strain  and  playing  gently  ; 
it  means  watching  every  move  of  the  fish  to  be  sure 
that  if  he  gives  a  sudden  dash  or  leap  the  rod  and 
reel  are  ready  to  respond  to  it.  Well,  he  made  a 
fine  fight ;  twice  more  he  leaped  clean  out  and 
repeatedly  dropped  down  to  the  edge  of  the  rapids 
and  there  lashed  about  on  the  surface.  In  one 
long  run  up  the  farther  side  of  the  river  he  caught 
the  line  upon  a  great  round  boulder,  and  it  seemed 


32-34-40  LBS.  155 

as  if  he  must  break  it,  but  after  a  few  moments  of 
horrible  grating  I  felt  a  twang,  and  the  line  was 
released  from  the  boulder  and  sprang  into  the  air 
again  taut  upon  the  fish,  some  ten  yards  higher  up 
the  stream,  but  carrying  fast  upon  it  a  lump  of 
moss  about  the  size  of  a  cricket  ball  torn  from  the 
side  of  the  boulder.  The  last  effort  of  the  fish 
was  to  bolt  down  the  rapids  into  the  pool  below, 
where,  after  a  stubborn  fight,  he  was  brought  to 
the  gravel  and  taken  out,  thirty-five  minutes  after 
he  was  hooked.  Thirty-two  pounds  he  weighed, 
and  proud  as  Punch  I  was  of  him  in  those  days, 
making  an  outline  model  of  his  tubby  figure  in 
strong  drawing-paper  and  touching  it  up  with 
ink,  to  fill  in  the  eyes,  fins,  and  other  details,  and 
the  spots  and  shading  of  the  back. 

This  remained  the  best  fish  until  September 
1908,  when  on  the  i8th  I  took  six  fish  weighing 
as  they  came  15,  5,  15,  14,  18  and  34  Ibs.  The 
big  one  was  caught  upon  a  minnow  in  a  quiet, 
slow-running  pool  where  I  had  never  dreamed  of 
taking  a  very  big  fish. 

But  that  pool  must  have  been  well  suited  for 
big  fish,  for  seven  days  later — and  since  I  wrote 
what  you  have  just  been  reading — I  was  lucky 
enough  to  hook  there  and  land  a  fish  of  40 J  Ibs., 
my  heaviest  salmon  up  to  the  present,  and  one  that 
I  am  not  very  likely  to  beat.  During  the  morning 
three  fish  had  touched  my  fly,  two,  weighing  14 
and  1 6  Ibs.,  had  been  landed  and  the  other  lost ; 
but  after  midday  not  a  rise  could  be  got,  so  as  a 


156  MY  BEST  FISH 

last  chance  before  going  home  I  went  to  try  this 
pool.  Whilst  I  took  one  turn  over  it  with  the 
fly  I  got  Tom  to  put  up  the  spinning  rod,  and 
then  I  mounted  a  small  phantom  minnow  and  at 
the  second  cast  hooked  the  big  fish.  He  fought 
and  walloped  and  plunged  on  the  surface  for  a  long 
time,  taking  a  great  deal  out  of  himself  and  also 
showing  me  that  I  had  a  very  big  fish  to  deal  with. 
It  was  growing  dark  and  the  bank  was  fringed  with 
willows,  but  luckily  the  fish  kept  to  the  open 
water  and  put  up  a  very  active  plunging  fight,  so 
that  in  about  fifteen  minutes  I  was  able,  at  a  gap 
in  the  willows,  to  bring  him  near  enough  to  use  the 
gaff.  Up  to  then  I  believed  that  he  was  a  big  fish, 
about  30  Ibs.  perhaps,  but  until,  as  I  dragged  him 
ashore,  I  saw  his  great  length  and  his  thick  back, 
I  had  no  idea  that  I  was  in  for  the  long-coveted 
forty-pounder.  But  when  I  saw  him  come  out 
of  the  water  I  hoped  for  even  more  than  40  Ibs., 
and  I  am  certain  that  if  he  had  not  been  bitten,  as 
he  was,  he  must  have  weighed  from  45  to  50  Ibs. 
For  he  measured  just  over  forty-eight  inches 
from  the  snout  to  the  centre  of  the  tail,  and  these 
big  fish  usually  weigh  about  a  pound  to  the  inch,  or 
if  in  really  fine  condition,  a  little  more  than  a  pound 
to  the  inch.  But  my  victim  had  lately  received  a 
frightful  double  wound  from  the  teeth  of  some 
predatory  beast — some  seal  or  porpoise  most  pro- 
bably— and  although  he  showed  no  sign  of  autumn 
redness,  in  spite  of  a  large  '  gib  '  and  a  hooked 
jaw,  yet  he  was  not  as  deep  as  he  ought  to  have 


A    FORTY-POUNDER 


4O  LBS.  157 

been,  and  he  must  have  lost  many  pounds  in 
condition  from  this  injury. 

His  would-be  captor  had  quite  obviously  seized 
his  salmon  from  underneath,  for  there  were  two 
great  gashes  on  each  side  of  his  belly,  and  the 
scrapes  of  his  captor's  teeth  backwards  and  down- 
wards to  the  anal  fin  were  quite  plainly  to  be  seen. 
What  a  meal  he  would  have  made  for  almost 
anything  ! 

Well,  we  photographed  him  the  next  morning 
before  going  to  fish,  and  his  portrait  (beside  a  little 
boy  of  six  years  that  I  think  you  know)  is  here  at 
page  156.  The  wound  on  the  side  is  not  very 
clearly  shown,  but  the  scrape  of  the  teeth  from 
that  wound  just  in  front  of  the  ventral  fins,  in  a 
sort  of  half-moon,  back  to  the  torn  anal  fin,  can  be 
traced  pretty  plainly. 


XVII 

WHEN   AND  WHERE   TO   EXPECT   SALMON 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Cold  winds  and  wretched  weather, 
which  send  the  trout  fisher  home  empty-handed, 
seem  often  to  make  little  or  no  difference  to  the 
salmon.  The  wind  and  the  weather  do  affect 
success  in  salmon  fishing,  but  it  is  in  a  very  uncer- 
tain and  capricious  manner.  No  day  and  no 
weather  is  hopeless  if  there  are  salmon  in  the  pools, 
but  a  fresh  and  even  a  strong  wind  is  usually  a 
good  thing  for  the  salmon  fisher.  Even  bitter 
north  and  east  winds  do  not  prevent  the  fish  from 
taking  the  fly,  though  they  can  make  the  fisher 
pretty  miserable,  and  especially  if  on  his  water 
they  happen  to  be  foul  winds,  that  is  to  say,  winds 
blowing  up-stream  or  in  his  face.  But  salmon  seem 
to  dislike  haze  and  gloom,  and  they  seldom  take 
well  either  in  hot  and  hazy  weather  or  in  dull  gloom. 
But  if  the  air  is  clear  and  without  mist  the  day 
may  be  as  hot  or  as  cold,  as  sunny  or  as  dark  as 
you  will,  and  still  you  may  have  a  very  fine  day's 
salmon  fishing. 

In  big,  dark  waters  a  bright  sun  is  a  positive 
advantage,  as  the  fish  seem  to  see  the  fly  better  in 
sunlight,  or  at  any  rate  they  take  it  much  better. 
But  in  low,  clear  water  most  fishers  prefer  to  have 

158 


TWILIGHT  159 

no  sunshine,  although  if  the  day  is  fresh  and  the 
horizon  clear  and  bright,  a  sunny  day  often  proves 
a  very  good  day  and  especially  in  the  spring. 
After  a  hot,  glaring  day  in  August  or  September 
the  hour  of  sunset  and  twilight  is  never  without 
hope  and  may  prove  most  deadly.  Many  and 
many  a  time  I  have  known  two,  three,  and  four 
fish  to  be  taken  in  this  hour  by  a  rod  that  had 
moved  nothing  all  day.  But  too  often  the  fisher 
has  gone  home  to  dinner  at  the  very  time  when  he 
should  be  fishing  hardest.  The  best  chance  lasts 
but  a  short  time  and  comes  after  sunset,  when  the 
light  has  failed  so  much  that  the  surface  of  the 
water  seems  to  reflect  it  all,  and  you  seem  to  be 
casting  into  a  river  of  liquid  metal.  On  such 
hopeless  days  you  should  keep  one  of  your  likeliest 
spots  for  the  last  few  casts  in  the  failing  light,  and 
should  be  careful  to  disturb  the  fish  there  as  little 
as  possible  during  the  afternoon. 

Rain  is  by  no  means  against  success  in  salmon 
fishing,  rather  the  contrary,  and  fish  often  take 
well  in  slashing  storms  of  rain.  But  in  very  late 
autumn,  when  fish  are  anxious  to  press  on  and 
ascend  the  river,  rain  and  even  showery  weather 
seems  to  suggest  floods,  and  the  fish  often  be- 
come unsettled  and  take  very  badly  in  what 
seems  to  be  almost  perfect  water.  And  often  at 
other  times  when  they  appear  to  be  expecting  a 
flood,  salmon  take  very  badly,  although  the 
moment  that  the  water  begins  to  rise  they  may 
take  savagely.  On  a  quick,  sudden  rise  of  water 


160  WHEN  AND  WHERE  TO  EXPECT  SALMON 

it  is  well  known  that  fish  will  take,  but  it  is  often 
said  that  they  will  not  take  in  water  that  is  rising 
slowly  and  steadily.  This  may  be  true  in  some 
rivers,  but  is  not  so  in  all,  for  I  have  a  good  many 
times  known  fish  take  very  well  in  such  water. 
Even  in  snowstorms  and  thunderstorms,  an'd  just 
before  thunderstorms,  I  have  known  them  to  rise 
well,  although  far  more  often  they  refuse  to  rise 
at  all. 

Probably  for  the  actual  taking  of  salmon,  apart 
from  the  joy  and  pleasure  of  fishing,  the  best  day 
upon  the  whole,  in  spring  or  summer  or  early 
autumn  fishing,  is  such  a  day  as  is  described  in  the 
old  ballad : 

'  The  wind  doth  blow  to-day,  my  love, 
And  a  few  small  drops  of  rain ' ; 

and  the  very  worst  days  are — at  all  times  of  the 
year — warm,  muggy  days,  when  the  air  feels  close 
and  heavy  and  the  river  is  covered  with  floating 
foam  and  bubbles.  This  foam  is  a  very  odd  thing. 
On  some  days  every  stream  and  pool  may  be 
covered  with  flecks  and  lumps  of  foam,  and  every 
backwater  and  every  eddy  by  the  streams  is 
covered  with  a  blanket  of  hissing  bubbles.  Such 
days  are  more  common  in  autumn  than  in  spring 
and  are  always  close  and  muggy  days,  and  the 
almost  soap-sud  foam  seems  to  be  due  to  some 
peculiar  state  of  air  and  water  which  delays  the 
bursting  of  the  bubbles  formed  in  the  splashing 
streams.  If  the  day  freshens  the  foam  may  dis- 
appear in  a  few  minutes,  but  whilst  this  foam  is  on 


FOAM  161 

the  water  I  have  always,  or  almost  always,  found 
the  fish  take  very  badly — indeed  on  only  one  day 
in  twenty  years  can  I  remember  to  have  done  well 
in  such  foam.  On  that  day  the  salmon  suddenly 
began  to  take,  and  between  three  and  four  o'clock 
I  got  four  fish,  but  the  whole  day  before  and  after 
it  was  a  total  blank  without  a  rise. 

This  last  season,  1909,  was  an  example.  For 
days  together,  when  the  water  was  hi  fine  order, 
the  foam  floated  everywhere  and  hardly  a  fish  was 
taken.  Why  it  should  be  so  I  cannot  say.  It 
may  be  that  the  endless  flecks  of  foam  floating 
over  the  fish  tire  his  eye  or  distract  his  attention 
from  the  fly.  However,  on  such  days  the  best 
thing  to  do  is  to  try  the  tails  of  long,  quiet  pools 
where  the  froth  has  had  time  to  disappear.  There 
you  may  get  a  rise. 

Night  fishing.  Salmon  take  very  well,  just  as 
trout  do,  when  it  is  dark  or  almost  dark — so  dark 
that  you  cannot  see  the  fly  or  the  line — but  I 
have  seldom  found  them  ready  to  take  on  a  cold, 
raw  night.  On  a  warm,  mild  night  they  will  take 
quite  a  small  fly  in  the  smooth,  quiet  streams  and 
in  glassy  runs.  In  late  evening  fishing,  too,  smooth 
and  swift-running  water  is  the  best  to  fish,  and  any 
small  fly  with  a  pair  of  large,  bright  jungle  cock's 
feathers  in  the  wings  will  kill  the  very  biggest  fish 
which  earlier  in  the  day  were  lying  in  the  deep 
water.  But  in  the  heavy  streams  and  in  big 
waters  at  dusk,  or  when  it  has  grown  quite  dark, 
you  may  use  your  very  largest  fly,  and  may  take 

L 


164  WHEN  AND  WHERE  TO  EXPECT  SALMON 

of  course,  is  only  a  rough  rule  of  thumb.  One 
bit  of  shallow  water  in  a  deep  pool  may  make 
that  pool  a  fine  high-water  pool,  and  there  may  be 
nothing  to  tell  you  where  that  shallow  is. 

In  high  water  after  a  flood. — The  quiet  '  dubs  ' 
at  the  tails  of  long  pools,  and  the  thin,  glassy  water 
where  the  tail  of  any  pool  sucks  down  to  a  rapid 
below,  are  usually  the  most  likely  places.  Also  any 
narrower  waist  or  stronger  running  place  in  pools 
which  are,  at  ordinary  level,  long,  still  pools.  These 
places  are  very  deadly  in  early  spring  or  late 
autumn,  and  you  may  find  them  by  watching  the 
surface  of  the  river  when  a  flood  is  rising  or  falling, 
and  seeing  where  the  stream  runs  strongest  and 
boils  most. 

Occasionally  in  special  places,  and  when  fish  are 
running,  the  shallow  water  at  the  edge  of  the  strong 
streams  rushing  into  the  head  of  big  pools  holds 
good  taking  fish  in  high  water. 

In  big  waters  on  a  rapid  rise  from  normal. — 
Fish  just  where  fish  were  lying  before  the  rise 
came,  but  close  in  to  the  shallows.  Also  beside 
the  runs  at  the  head  of  the  stream. 

In  dead  low  waters. — Try  the  very  neck  of  the 
stream  just  where  the  water  running  into  the  pool 
becomes  deep  enough  to  hold  a  salmon — two  or 
three  feet  deep — and  fish  down  the  rush  so  long 
as  it  is  strong  enough  to  swirl  the  fly  about. 
Also  try  the  strongest  swirls  of  pot  holes  and 
broken  water. 

In  the  evening. — In  low  water,  with  fine  tackle 


BRIGHT  SUN  165 

fish  at  the  very  tails  of  long  dubs  where  the  water 
slips  over  into  the  next  pool. 

At  the  tail  of  a  deep  swirling  pool  wherever  the 
water  shallows  and  begins  to  run  out  fan-wise. 

On  the  shallowing  water  below  any  deep  pool. 

In  the  evening,  in  large  or  high  waters,  fish  the 
big  dubs  and  in  strong  streams  running  smoothly, 
rather  than  in  water  that  is  broken  and  rough. 

In  bright  sun. — Fish  the  streams  and  in  the  very 
quickest  part  of  the  streams  with  bright  and 
especially  with  glittering  silver  or  gold-bodied  flies. 
And  in  sunny  weather  remember,  too,  that  you 
may  take  all  the  glitter  off  your  gut  by  rubbing  it 
with  the  rolled-up  leaf  of  an  alder. 

In  wild,  rough,  windy  weather  in  low  water. — 
Fish  anywhere,  but  especially  on  the  quieter  flats 
where  lately  there  has  not  been  current  enough 
to  kill  fish.  Use  a  small,  bright  fly  or  a  large, 
dark  claret  or  black  fly. 

On  a  rise  in  the  water. — Go  at  once  to  fish  all 
the  places  where  lately  it  was  too  low  to  fish. 


L2 


164  WHEN  AND  WHERE  TO  EXPECT  SALMON 

of  course,  is  only  a  rough  rule  of  thumb.  One 
bit  of  shallow  water  in  a  deep  pool  may  make 
that  pool  a  fine  high-water  pool,  and  there  may  be 
nothing  to  tell  you  where  that  shallow  is. 

In  high  water  after  a  flood. — The  quiet  '  dubs  ' 
at  the  tails  of  long  pools,  and  the  thin,  glassy  water 
where  the  tail  of  any  pool  sucks  down  to  a  rapid 
below,  are  usually  the  most  likely  places.  Also  any 
narrower  waist  or  stronger  running  place  in  pools 
which  are,  at  ordinary  level,  long,  still  pools.  These 
places  are  very  deadly  in  early  spring  or  late 
autumn,  and  you  may  find  them  by  watching  the 
surface  of  the  river  when  a  flood  is  rising  or  falling, 
and  seeing  where  the  stream  runs  strongest  and 
boils  most. 

Occasionally  in  special  places,  and  when  fish  are 
running,  the  shallow  water  at  the  edge  of  the  strong 
streams  rushing  into  the  head  of  big  pools  holds 
good  taking  fish  in  high  water. 

In  big  waters  on  a  rapid,  rise  from  normal. — 
Fish  just  where  fish  were  lying  before  the  rise 
came,  but  close  in  to  the  shallows.  Also  beside 
the  runs  at  the  head  of  the  stream. 

In  dead  low  waters. — Try  the  very  neck  of  the 
stream  just  where  the  water  running  into  the  pool 
becomes  deep  enough  to  hold  a  salmon — two  or 
three  feet  deep — and  fish  down  the  rush  so  long 
as  it  is  strong  enough  to  swirl  the  fly  about. 
Also  try  the  strongest  swirls  of  pot  holes  and 
broken  water. 

In  the  evening. — In  low  water,  with  fine  tackle 


BRIGHT  SUN  165 

fish  at  the  very  tails  of  long  dubs  where  the  water 
slips  over  into  the  next  pool. 

At  the  tail  of  a  deep  swirling  pool  wherever  the 
water  shallows  and  begins  to  run  out  fan-wise. 

On  the  shallowing  water  below  any  deep  pool. 

In  the  evening,  in  large  or  high  waters,  fish  the 
big  dubs  and  in  strong  streams  running  smoothly, 
rather  than  in  water  that  is  broken  and  rough. 

In  bright  sun. — Fish  the  streams  and  in  the  very 
quickest  part  of  the  streams  with  bright  and 
especially  with  glittering  silver  or  gold-bodied  flies. 
And  in  sunny  weather  remember,  too,  that  you 
may  take  all  the  glitter  off  your  gut  by  rubbing  it 
with  the  rolled-up  leaf  of  an  alder. 

In  wild,  rough,  windy  weather  in  low  water. — 
Fish  anywhere,  but  especially  on  the  quieter  flats 
where  lately  there  has  not  been  current  enough 
to  kill  fish.  Use  a  small,  bright  fly  or  a  large, 
dark  claret  or  black  fly. 

On  a  rise  in  the  water. — Go  at  once  to  fish  all 
the  places  where  lately  it  was  too  low  to  fish. 


L2 


XVIII 

HINTS  ON   FLY   TYING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — It  is  of  no  use  trying  to  tell  you 
within  the  compass  of  any  reasonable  letter  how 
to  tie  a  salmon  fly.  You  must  have  some  one  to 
show  you  how  to  do  that,  for  all  mere  descriptions 
that  I  have  ever  seen  are  intensely  tedious  and 
boring,  because  the  writer  has  to  be  minute  in 
every  detail  if  he  is  unable  to  assume  that  his 
reader  knows  such  simple  things  as  the  usual 
position  of  the  hands  in  tying  a  fly,  how  to  hold 
the  hook,  how  to  set  about  tying  on  a  wing,  or  a 
hackle — if  he  cannot  assume  that  you  know  these 
things,  which  one  practical  lesson  would  show  you 
through  the  eye  in  a  few  moments.  But  even  so 
there  are  books  which  explain  everything  to  the 
uttermost  detail.  Mr.  Kelson's  great  book  on  the 
Salmon  Fly  is  one  of  them,  and  there  is  a  useful 
little  booklet  by  Captain  Hale,  which  is  well  worth 
having  by  you,  and  no  doubt  there  are  others. 
All  that  I  intend  to  do  is  to  give  you  some  '  tips  ' 
which  I  have  found  useful,  tips  that  you  will  not 
find,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  any  of  those  books. 

First — to  take  them  more  or  less  in  the  order  in 
which  you  would  tie  a  fly — for  tying  on  the  loop 
to  the  hook  I  always  use,  unless  the  hook  is  under 


166 


FIDDLE-STRING  LOOPS  167 

an  inch  long,  stout  saddlers'  twist.  It  is  a  yellow 
silk  thread  (Pearsall's  No.  14),  immensely  strong, 
and  you  can  use  any  amount  of  force  in  the  wind- 
ing without  risk  of  a  break,  whilst  its  thickness 
causes  it  to  cover  the  hook  in  much  fewer  turns 
than  does  the  fine  silk  ordinarity  used. 

Next,  for  the  loops  themselves,  I  always  use 
fiddle-string — the  thinnest  E  string  of  the  violin, 
and,  for  the  very  small  flies,  banjo  strings,  which 
are  thinner  still.  The  great  merit  of  these  loops 
is  that  they  soften  instantly  on  being  wetted, 
and  you  do  not  and  cannot  crack  off  the  fly  at  the 
loop  even  in  the  highest  wind.  Of  course  it  is 
possible  to  crack  off  the  single  gut  above  the  fly, 
but  even  that  feat  of  folly  is  rendered  difficult, 
even  for  a  beginner,  by  having  the  fly  joined  to  the 
gut  with  a  loop  which  is  perfectly  soft  and  flexible. 

Next,  having  tied  the  loop  to  the  hook,  varnish 
the  lapping  well  with  celluloid  varnish.  That  is 
merely  celluloid  dissolved  in  acetone  or  amyl 
acetate,  two  perfectly  harmless  and  inexpensive 
drugs  to  be  had  of  any  good  chemist.  Celluloid 
is  to  be  found  nowadays  in  almost  every  country- 
house  in  the  form  of  photographic  films.  You 
have  only  to  soak  some  old  films,  used  or  unused, 
in  hot  water  and  then  strip  off  the  sensitised 
gelatine,  and  then  the  harder  film  may  be  cut  up 
into  strips  and  dissolved  in  your  acetone  or  amyl 
acetate.  A  ready-made  solution  of  celluloid  in 
amyl  acetate — the  drug  which  smells  so  strongly 
of  pear  drops — is  sold,  under  the  name  of  Zapon, 


168  HINTS  ON  FLY  TYING 

as  a  varnish  or  lacquer  to  keep  silver  and  bright 
metal  ornaments  from  tarnishing  in  the  fogs  of 
London.  It  costs  about  a  shilling  a  bottle  and  can 
be  got  at  the  Stores,  and  no  doubt  elsewhere.  It 
is  rather  too  thin  a  solution  for  fly  tying,  but  that 
can  very  easily  be  cured  either  by  adding  a  little 
photographic  film  to  the  solution,  or  by  leaving  the 
cork  out  and  allowing  a  little  of  the  liquid  to 
evaporate. 

This  celluloid  varnish  penetrates  into  anything, 
dries  quickly,  and  never  becomes  hard  or  brittle  as 
most  other  varnishes  do  in  cold  weather.  It  is 
immensely  better  for  making  flies,  and  every  sort 
of  fishing-tackle,  than  any  other  thing  that  I  have 
ever  come  across  in  the  way  of  varnishes.  One's 
flies  now  last  three  or  four  times  as  long  as  they  used 
to  do,  and,  better  still,  one  can  wing  one's  flies 
without  using  cobbler's  wax  upon  the  silk,  an 
advantage  which  I  will  explain  presently. 

Now,  having  got  your  hook  with  the  loop  tied 
securely  to  it,  you  want  to  dress  a  fly  upon  it. 
First  fasten  your  tying  silk  to  the  hook,  and  be 
careful  to  begin  the  fly  far  enough  back.  The 
first  lapping  of  the  silk  should  be  made  exactly 
opposite  the  point  of  the  barb  of  a  hook  of  the 
ordinary  Limerick  shape.  Apart  from  mere  want 
of  skill,  three  simple  faults  cause  the  beginner's 
flies  to  look  so  unattractive  to  the  experienced 
fisher.  They  are,  first,  that  the  bodies  are  usually 
not  begun  nearly  far  enough  back  on  the  hook ; 
secondly,  that  the  bodies  are  carried  too  far  for- 


CELLULOID  VARNISH  169 

ward,  leaving  too  little  space  free  to  tie  the  hackle 
and  wing ;  and,  thirdly,  that  the  beginner  almost 
always  makes  the  wings  of  his  flies  too  long.  The 
wings  should  not  extend  much,  if  at  all,  beyond 
the  bend  of  the  hook  if  the  fly  is  to  look  a  work- 
manlike and  killing  fly.  And  almost  one-third  of 
the  shank  of  the  hook  next  the  loop  should  be  left 
quite  free  of  any  body  dressing,  in  order  to  give 
room  for  the  hackle,  or  throat,  and  the  wings  and 
head.  Both  wings  and  hackle  are  then  more 
easily  and  more  firmly  tied,  and  your  fly  will  look 
better  and  will  last  better. 

Well,  to  begin  again,  fasten  your  tying  silk 
opposite  to  the  barb  point  and  at  once  tie  on  the 
end  of  your  tinsel.  The  only  tinsel  worth  using 
is  that  which  is  made  up  of  a  threadlike  silver  or 
gold  wire  wrapped  round  and  round  on  a  floss  silk 
foundation.  This  tinsel  cannot  be  broken  by  the 
teeth  of  a  fish.  If  you  fray  out  the  end  of  this 
tinsel,  by  pulling  off  a  few  turns  of  the  wire  that 
enwraps  it,  and  then  tie  the  now  fluffy  end  to  your 
hook  with  a  few  turns  of  silk,  and  after  that  touch 
the  fastening  with  a  dab  of  celluloid  varnish,  the 
ends  can  be  fastened  so  rigidly  that  the  tinsel  will 
never,  or  hardly  ever,  be  torn  loose,  and  will  be  a 
great  support  to  the  body  of  the  fly.  In  spring 
more  especially,  when  the  salmon  kelts  and  the 
bull-trout  and  sea-trout  kelts,  chew  your  best  flies 
to  pieces,  you  will  find  the  benefit  of  tying  and 
varnishing  your  tinsel,  and  indeed  every  part  of 
your  fly,  in  the  best  possible  manner. 


i;o  HINTS  ON  FLY  TYING 

A  good  many  things  have  to  be  tied  on  at  the 
tail  of  a  salmon  fly,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  keep  this 
part  neat.  I  begin  a  fly  thus  :  I  take  a  turn  of 
waxed  silk  round  the  hook  opposite  the  barb  point, 
then  lay  on  the  end  of  the  tinsel  and  take  two  or 
three  turns  and  a  half-hitch,  then  give  a  dab  of 
varnish,  then  tie  on  the  tail — if  I  mean  to  have  one, 
but  I  now  rarely  do  so — with  three  turns  of  silk ; 
then,  if  the  fly  is  to  have  a  silver  or  gold  body,  begin 
straightway  to  wind  on  the  body,  turning  the  hook 
against  the  tinsel.  When  I  say  turning  the  hook 
against  the  tinsel,  I  mean  that  you  hold  with  your 
right  hand  the  shank  of  the  hook,  with  the  ribbon 
of  tinsel  projecting  at  right  angles  to  it.  Then 
holding  the  hook  by  the  bend  with  your  left  hand 
you  turn  or  roll  the  hook  round  and  round,  thus 
winding  on  the  tinsel  with  a  smoothness  and 
regularity  that  is  very  difficult  to  attain  by  any 
other  method. 

But  if  your  fly  is  not  to  have  a  tinsel  body  you 
must,  after  tying  on  the  tail,  tie  on  the  strand  of 
floss  silk  or  of  wool  or  of  mohair  that  you  mean  to 
use  for  the  body.  I  think  that  fish,  when  they  take 
a  fly,  expect  a  juicy  morsel.  It  is  not  the  wings 
that  they  want  to  eat,  and  so  I  believe  in  having  a 
fairly  thick  body  ;  but  as  it  approaches  the  for- 
ward end  don't  forget  to  leave,  as  I  have  said,  a 
fourth  to  a  third  of  the  shank  quite  bare  for  the 
hackle  and  the  wings,  and,  moreover,  taper  off 
your  body  somewhat  at  the  shoulder  end  as  well 
as  at  the  tail. 


MAKE  FLIES  STRONGLY  171 

When  you  have  wound  on  your  body  of  wool 
and  tied  down  the  end  of  it,  then  wind  on  your 
tinsel  and  fasten  it  securely — and  it  is  better  to 
wind  it  the  opposite  way  round.  When  done,  take 
a  turn  or  two  round  it  with  the  silk,  then  snip  off 
the  tinsel  with  your  scissors  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
away  and  expose  the  silk  foundation  of  this  bit  by 
pulling  off  the  wire  wrapping  from  it,  and  then 
take  a  few  more  turns  with  your  tying  silk  over 
that  end,  give  it  a  dab  of  celluloid,  and  you  have 
finished  your  body.  With  decent  luck  it  will  be 
indestructible,  and  you  may  re-wing  that  body 
three  or  four  times,  and  the  more  worn  it  gets  the 
better  the  fish  seem  to  like  it.  Never  omit  that 
dab  of  varnish  upon  the  turns  of  tying  silk  ;  you 
need  not  wait  for  it  to  dry,  it  sinks  in  at  once, 
but  it  will,  as  I  say,  make  your  fly  almost  in- 
destructible. 

Now  you  will  want  to  tie  on  a  hackle,  and  here 
I  have  a  little  tip  for  you  to  do  it  neatly  and  easily. 
First,  of  course,  you  spread  the  hackle  so  that 
every  strand  stands  at  right  angles  to  the  central 
line  of  the  feather.  This  is  the  old-fashioned  plan, 
and  I  think  it  is  easier  than  rolling  or  doubling 
over  the  hackle.  But  for  the  beginner  it  is  easier 
still  to  strip  off  one  side  of  the  hackle  altogether. 
Then  you  wet  the  tip  of  the  hackle  to  close  that 
up  and  then  tie  it  to  the  body.  Then  hold  the 
hook  in  your  left  hand  point  upwards,  take  hold 
of  the  butt  of  your  hackle  with  your  spring  pliers, 
and  carefully  make  one  or  two  turns  of  the  hackle 


i;2  HINTS  ON  FLY  TYING 

round  the  hook ;  then  leaving  the  hackle  to  hang, 
kept  down  by  the  weight  of  the  pliers,  you  press 
back  the  kind  of  frill  of  hackles  that  you  have  made, 
coaxing  the  side  strands  upwards  so  as  to  get  as 
many  strands  as  possible  at  the  throat  of  the  fly, 
where  you  want  the  hackle  to  show.  You  smooth 
all  back  with  your  right  forefinger  and  thumb,  and 
then  hold  the  tips  down  close  to  the  body  with 
your  left  hand  whilst  you  take  up  the  pliers  that 
are  hanging  on  the  hackle  and  wind  on  another 
frill  of  two  or  three  turns,  press  this  frill  back  as 
before,  hold  it  down  to  the  body  in  the  same  way, 
and  so  on  until  you  have  got  enough  hackle  for 
your  fancy.  My  fancy  is  for  a  very  thin  hackle  ; 
no  fly  has  more  than  six  legs. 

Although  I  think  that  the  fly  would  still  in  all 
probability  kill  as  well  as  it  did  before,  yet  it  is  an 
annoying  thing  to  find  that  the  hackle  has  come 
off  a  killing  fly.  So,  to  prevent  this,  do  not  omit 
a  dab  of  celluloid  on  the  silk  fastenings  when  you 
begin  and  when  you  end  off  the  hackle. 

Now  for  the  wing  : — 

It  is  the  wing  that  gives  most  trouble  to  the 
commencing  fly  tier.  On  some  days  the  wing  will 
not  go  right.  Do  what  j^ou  can  the  feathers  will 
roll  up  and  stick  out  in  all  directions  in  the  most 
exasperating  way.  The  silk  catches  in  the  strips 
of  feather  as  the  beginner  tries  to  fasten  them 
down,  pulling  them  all  to  one  side  and  spoiling 
the  whole  thing  in  a  moment.  Now  silk  always  is 
a  little  apt  to  catch  in  feather  over  which  it  is 


WINGING  FLIES  173 

being  drawn,  but  the  troubles  of  the  beginner 
are  immensely  increased  by  the  fact  that  his  silk 
is  usually  waxed  with  cobbler's  wax  for  the  very 
purpose  of  making  it  sticky.  The  penetrating 
power  and  strength  of  celluloid  as  a  varnish  now 
enables  you  to  dispense  with  the  waxing  of  the 
silk  that  you  use  for  tying  on  the  wings.  If  the 
beginner  will  start  his  wing  with  two  rather  narrow 
strips  of  some  easily  tied  feather,  such  as  that 
from  the  tail  or  wing  of  a  turkey,  will  use  unwaxed 
silk  and  give  the  fastening  a  dab  of  celluloid  after 
each  fresh  layer  of  feather  is  bound  on,  he  will  not, 
I  think,  find  the  tying  of  a  simple  and  workmanlike 
wing  a  matter  of  any  particular  difficulty. 

The  dark-barred  mallard  feather  is  one  of  the 
most  tender  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  useful  of 
the  common  feathers,  and  if  your  silk  is  unwaxed 
you  can  tie  on  broad  strips  of  mallard  without 
much  risk  at  a  stage  when  your  skill  is  wholly  un- 
equal to  controlling  the  same  feather  with  waxed 
silk,  when  without  rhyme  or  reason  the  strips  go 
wrong  time  after  time. 

You  should  remember  that  feathers  gathered 
when  the  bird  is  in  fresh  plumage  are  much  easier 
to  tie  than  old,  stale  feathers  that  either  have  come 
from  a  bird  almost  ready  to  moult  again,  or  that 
have  been  kept  by  you  for  many  years.  The  sign 
of  a  good  feather  is  that  it  should  be  springy  and 
soft,  not  harsh  to  the  touch,  and  with  a  clean, 
even  edge,  not  frayed  by  months  of  hard  service  for 
its  former  owner. 


174  HINTS  ON  FLY  TYING 

A  throat  of  Gallina  (that  is,  guinea-fowl — perle- 
hone,  '  pearl  hen/  they  call  her  in  Norway)  is  a 
good  deal  easier  to  tie  on  than  a  hackle  is  because 
the  feathers  are  not  so  delicate.  Gallina  makes  a 
very  good  hackle,  too,  and  whether  tied  as  a 
throat  or  hackle  it  makes  the  fly  look,  at  least  to 
my  eyes,  extremely  taking,  and  it  is  the  best  of  all 
imitations  of  the  legs  of  an  insect.  In  fact,  the 
rough,  mottled  legs  of  some  water-spiders  are 
remarkably  like  the  single  strands  of  Gallina. 

My  whole  aim  in  tying  a  fly  is  to  get  a  lively 
motion  in  the  water  and,  also,  neatness.  Nature 
in  all  her  forms  is  always  incomparably  neat,  and 
if  you  wish  your  fly  to  counterfeit  a  living  thing, 
whatever  it  may  be,  your  work  should  at  least  be 
neat.  And  amongst  all  the  suggestions  that  are 
made  as  to  what  it  is  that  the  salmon  supposes 
the  fly  to  be,  all  are  agreed  upon  one  point — that 
he  takes  it  for  some  living  thing,  making  its  way 
across  his  pool. 

For  myself,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  is  the 
beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end  of  the  matter. 
The  salmon  was  bred  in  the  river,  and  for  the  first 
two  years  of  his  life  ate  greedily  of  every  living  thing 
that  he  came  across,  if  it  was  small  enough  to  fall  a 
victim  to  his  powers — flies,  creepers,  slugs,  worms, 
spiders,  minnows,  all  came  alike  to  him.  Then 
he  is  impelled  to  the  sea,  where  he  finds  fresh 
myriads  of  creatures  of  the  most  strange  forms, 
yet  as  he  comes  across  each  one  he  tries  it  and  he 
finds  that  it  is  very  good.  Just  consider  how 


A  SALMON  FLY  FROM  BELOW          175 

strange  these  things  must  look  to  a  lusty  little 
smolt,  fast  growing  into  a  grilse,  when  he  first 
comes  to  see  a  shrimp,  a  sprat,  a  sand-eel,  a  crab, 
a  prawn,  a  star-fish  or  a  jelly-fish,  not  to  speak 
of  little  flounders  and  all  sorts  of  flat  fish  scudding 
along  on  the  sandy  bottoms.  Don't  you  think  a 
prawn  is  quite  as  odd-looking  a  beast  as  any 
salmon  fly  can  be  ?  And  when  the  grown  salmon 
after,  perhaps,  two  or  three  years'  absence  comes 
back  to  the  river  that  he  left  as  a  little  smolt,  does 
he  remember  very  clearly  his  tiny  flies  ?  I 
suspect  that  he  looks  for  something  much  bigger 
than  he  really  finds.  If  I  might  guess  at  the 
thoughts  of  the  salmon  I  could  fancy  him  thinking 
thus:  'Hallo!  That's  a  rummy-looking  object 
that  has  just  fallen  on  the  water  over  there.  I 
believe  it 's  alive — yes,  it  must  be  alive,  for  I  see 
it  swims  against  the  current,  and  it  is  crossing  the 
pool,  too.  I  wonder  what  it  can  be  !  I  remember 
when  I  was  up  here  as  a  little  fish  there  used  to  be 
some  whacking  big  flies  that  tasted  jolly  good — 
great  big  fellows,  and  a  decent  mouthful,  not  like 
these  miserable  little  gnats  of  March  browns  that  I 
have  seen  so  far,  so  small  that  you  can't  taste  them. 
I  wonder  if  this  one  is  of  the  old  sort  that  used  to 
be  so  good.  There  he  comes  again,  or  else  another 
one.  He  looks  pretty  fat,  I  '11  have  a  go  at  him. 
Ugh,  Holy  Poker  !  what  a  brute  !  What  a  sting 
he  has  got !  And  how  he  held  on.  I  '11  leave 
that  sort  of  fly  alone  for  the  future/ 

When  people  talk  of  salmon  taking  the  salmon 


176  HINTS  ON  FLY  TYING 

fly  for  a  shrimp  or  a  prawn,  as  many  people  insist 
they  do,  well,  it  may  be  so,  but  it  is  worth  while  to 
remember  that  big,  wary  trout  often  fall  victims 
to  the  salmon  fly,  and  they  have  never  seen  either 
shrimp  or  prawn,  and  they  know  very  well  what  a 
trout  fly  is,  and  are  very  hard  to  catch  on  an 
artificial  one. 


XIX 

KNOTS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — All  knotting  of  gut  involves 
some  risk  of  cutting  or  breaking  it,  and  for  that 
reason  you  are  obliged  to  learn  some  special  knots 
for  use  with  the  thick  gut  needed  in  salmon  fishing. 
Even  if  you  do  not  aspire  to  make  your  own  casts, 
or  even  to  mend  them  for  yourself,  you  would 
have  to  know  the  best  knots  that  are  in  use  for 
tying  the  gut  cast  to  your  reel  line,  and  for  tying 
the  gut  itself  to  the  loop  of  your  fly. 

The  beginner  may  do  well  enough  by  having  a 
large  loop  at  the  end  of  his  gut  cast  and  attaching 
his  fly  to  it  by  passing  this  loop  through  the  eye  of 
the  fly  and  then  over  the  fly  itself,  and  he  may 
have  a  similar  loop  at  the  end  of  his  reel  line  for 
fastening  that  to  his  gut  cast.  But  loops  are 
clumsy  and  unreliable.  They  use  up  a  lot  of  gut, 
and  they  do  not  get  thrown  away  and  renewed 
nearly  as  often  as  they  should  be  renewed  or  as 
the  gut  used  for  a  single  knot  would  be  replaced, 
for  on  untying  one  fly  and  tying  on  another  you 
naturally  tie  the  new  one  upon  the  undamaged 
gut  and  throw  away  the  crushed  end  that  was 
employed  for  the  last  knot.  And  there  is  sound 
sense  in  that  practice  :  the  greatest  strains  that 

M 


i;8  KNOTS 

arise  in  casting  always  occur  at  any  place  where 
thick  and  thin  stuff  joins,  and  the  nearer  you  get 
to  the  end  of  the  whip  lash  the  greater  the  strain 
on  the  material  becomes.  It  is  the  last  inch  of  the 
gut  cast  that  runs  all  the  risk  of  breakage  by  being 
cracked  like  a  whip,  through  unduly  hurrying  your 
throw,  and  the  two  places  where  all  the  strain 
falls  are  the  junction  of  the  flexible  loop  at  the 
head  of  the  fly  with  the  rigid  shank  of  the  hook 
and  the  junction  of  the  single  gut  cast  with  this 
loop  of  the  fly. 

The  use  of  a  long  loop  also  on  the  gut  cast 
strengthens  this  latter  point  of  weakness  by 
doubling  the  gut  there,  but  itself  also  tends  to 
grow  weak  where  the  single  gut  joins  the  double 
gut  forming  the  loop.  The  great  risk  is  that 
having  got  a  neat  and  satisfactory  loop,  either  on 
the  line  or  the  cast,  you  are  apt  to  look  upon  it  as  a 
permanent  means  of  attachment,  forgetting  that, 
as  I  have  explained,  both  the  end  of  the  casting 
line  and  the  end  of  the  gut  cast  are  places  where 
thick  stuff  joins  thin,  and  places  in  which  the  best 
materials  quickly  become  unreliable  and  gut 
especially  so.  For  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  gut 
that  has  become  slightly  f  necked '  and  then  has 
got  dry  will  stand  a  quite  heavy  pull  when  you 
begin  to  use  it  again,  but  after  it  has  been  wetted 
and  used  for  a  very  short  time  it  will  snap  upon 
any  trifling  jerk.  The  danger  is,  as  I  have  said, 
that  having  got  a  loop  ready  made  you  are  apt  to 
go  on  using  it  until  it  breaks  when  you  strike  a  fish, 


FIGURE  OF  EIGHT  KNOTS  179 

and  you  lose  at  once  your  fly  and  the  whole  fruit 
of  your  labour.  In  theory  you  can  watch  each 
loop  and  can  detect  its  weakness ;  in  actual 
practice  you  will  be  sure  to  lose  precious  fish 
because  the  loop  has  grown  weak  without  your 
noticing  it. 

For  attaching  to  the  cast  very  large  and  heavy 
salmon  flies,  especially  those  with  metal  eyes,  such 
a  loop  on  the  gut  is  not  unsatisfactory,  if  you 
watch  it  most  carefully  to  see  that  no  part  of  it 
has  become  necked  or  weakened.  But  for  flies 
of  moderate  size  or  for  small  flies  this  loop  is  a 
very  poor  fastening.  It  is  clumsy  and  conspicu- 
ous, and  by  its  stiffness  it  deadens  the  play  of  a 
small  fly,  and  it  also  involves  the  risk  of  breakage 
that  I  have  just  tried  to  impress  upon  you. 

Both  for  tying  the  line  to  the  cast  and  for  tying 
the  single  gut  to  any  fly  which  has  a  flexible  loop 
(that  is,  a  loop  made  either  of  twisted  or  single 
silkworm-gut  or  made  of  fiddle-string — as  described 
on  page  167),  a  sound  and  reliable  knot  is  that 
called  the  figure  of  eight  knot. 

This  knot  has  two  forms.  The  first  and 
simplest,  and  the  best,  is  no  more  than  a  reef 
knot  made  with  the  gut  and  the  loop  on  the  fly, 
and  then  having  the  spare  end  of  the  gut  where  it 
comes  out  of  the  knot  turned  once  round  the  gut 
of  the  cast  and  then  bent  back  and  thrust  into 
the  reef  knot  again  before  it  is  drawn  tight,  so 
as  to  be  held  fast  in  the  tightened  knot.  The 
other  form,  which  looks  neater,  is  in  reality  a 


i8o 


KNOTS 


single  hitch  of  the  gut  made  on  the  fly-loop  with 
the  loose  end  of  the  hitch  brought  round  and 
turned  back  through  the  knot  in  very  similar 
fashion. 

I.  The  simpler  form — the  reef  knot  figure  of 
eight — is  made  thus  :  Enter  the  point  of  your  gut 
downwards  through  the  loop  of  the  fly  (held  with 
the  wings  uppermost)  and  make  an  ordinary  reef 
knot  with  gut  and  loop.  The  free  end  is  now  lying 
parallel  with  the  last  strand  of  the  cast. 

Lift  the  free  end  over  the  gut  link,  bring  it 
round  below  the  link,  and  then  fold  it  back  on  the 
top  of  the  loop  so  as  to  lie  as  in  the  illustration 
below,  and  pull  tight. 


FIG.  I.— Above— Reef  Knot. 

Below — Knot  completed,  but  loose. 

II.  The  knot  in  its  other  form  is  made  thus  : 
Hold  the  fly  between  the  left  finger  and  thumb 
and  upside  down  (i.e.  with  the  hook  point  above, 
not  below  the  horizontal  body  of  the  fly).  Then 
put  the  end  of  your  single  gut  upward  through 
the  loop  of  the  fly,  bend  the  gut  over  away  from 


FIGURE  OF  EIGHT  KNOTS 


181 


you,  bring  it  round  underneath  the  head  and  make 
an  ordinary  half-hitch,  and  leave  a  loose  end 
nearly  an  inch  long.  Then  turn  the  fly  over  (so 
as  to  have  the  hook  point  below  the  body),  when 
it  will  (from  above)  appear  as  in  figure  n. 

Next  take  the  loose  end,  bring  it  round  below 
the  gut  line,  then  bring  it  up,  bend  it  back  and 
poke  it  right  down  through  the  fly  loop  and 
through  your  half-hitch,  so  as  to  make  the  com- 
pleted figure  of  eight,  as  shown  in  figure  n. 


FIG.  II.— Above— Half-Hitch. 

Below — Knot  completed. 

The  knot  is  now  done,  and  you  gently  pull  all 
tight,  bringing  the  whole  knot  forward  away  from 
the  head  of  the  fly  so  as  to  lie  as  close  as  possible 
to  the  forward  end  of  the  loop.  Note  that  the 
sides  of  the  loop  of  the  fly  should  be  squeezed 
together  as  the  knot  is  pulled  tight,  and  with  a 
quite  new  and  unused  loop  it  is  an  advantage, 
after  drawing  the  knot  tight,  to  give  the  sides  a 
slight  squeeze  with  the  teeth  and  then  give  a  second 
pull.  If  that  be  done,  the  figure  of  eight  knot 

M  2 


182  KNOTS 

is  almost  perfection.  Whatever  knot  you  may 
employ,  if  the  fly  has  never  before  been  used,  you 
must  give  extra  care  to  the  knot.  A  new,  unused 
loop,  unless  perfectly  soaked  or  carefully  squeezed 
with  the  teeth  after  the  knot  is  drawn  together 
as  I  have  described,  will  have  grown  softer  after 
a  certain  amount  of  fishing,  and  on  a  sudden  jerk 
from  a  salmon  the  gut  is  apt  to  cut  itself  in  the 
knot — as  you  may  see  from  the  broken  end  after 
you  have  realised  the  loss  of  your  fly  and  the 
salmon.  Why  it  cuts  the  gut  in  this  way  is  not 
very  plain.  Even  if  the  loop  is  of  fiddle-string, 
which  softens  at  once  and  can  be  tied  directly  it 
is  thoroughly  wetted,  yet  a  new,  unused  loop  seems 
to  resist  the  squeeze  of  the  knot,  and  is  liable  to 
break  off  upon  the  sudden  snatch  of  a  salmon, 
unless  extra  care  has  been  used  to  see  that  the 
knot  has  settled  itself  firmly  in  the  new  loop. 

The  figure  of  eight  knot  in  either  form  is  a  good 
and  reliable  knot  for  all  stout  gut,  and  it  has  the 
merit  of  being  easy  to  untie.  To  loosen  it  you 
hold  the  fly  close  up  to  the  knot  and  with  the 
thumb  nail  push  aside  the  final  loop  of  gut  (the 
one  that  you  made  when  you  turned  back  the 
loose  end  round  the  gut  link  after  the  reef  knot  or 
half-hitch).  As  soon  as  this  is  moved  it  is  easy 
to  get  hold  of  it  and  pull  out  the  end  of  the  gut, 
leaving  only  the  half-hitch  or  the  reef  knot,  which 
is  undone  at  once. 

Whilst  we  are  untying  knots  there  is  one  useful 
little  tip  that  is  absurdly  simple,  but  still  may  not 


SLIP  KNOT  FOR  METAL  EYES  183 

occur  to  your  mind.  One  often  cuts  off  the  fly, 
knot  and  all,  and  then  afterwards  one  wants  to 
untie  the  knot  and  have  the  fly  ready  to  put  on 
again.  It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  untie  such  a 
knot,  and  it  is,  of  course,  most  risky  to  try  to  cut 
the  gut  in  the  knot  unless  you  take  some  means 
to  make  sure  that  you  shall  not  cut  the  loop  of 
the  fly.  Well,  if  you  force  the  point  of  a  pin 
under  any  bit  of  gut  that  you  wish  to  cut,  and 
then  shave  along  the  pin  with  the  blade  of  your 
knife,  you  cut  the  gut  without  the  least  risk  to 
your  fly.  The  knife  blade  is,  of  course,  held  at 
right  angles  to  the  pin  and  almost  flat  upon  it. 
This  little  tip  can  be  used  just  as  easily  for  remov- 
ing the  fly  from  the  cast  in  the  first  instance. 

For  tying  gut  to  eyed  hooks  or  to  the  ring  of 
a  swivel  the  best  knot  is  one  of  the  very  simplest 
things  in  the  world.  You  have  merely  to  thread 
the  eye  or  ring  upon  the  end  of  the  gut,  then  turn 
that  end  back  and  give  it  a  single  knot  round  the 
gut,  and  then  run  up  the  sort  of  primitive  slip  knot 
that  you  have  made. 

It  looks  a  quite  inadequate  knot,  but  you  will 
find  that  it  answers  perfectly. 

Detail : 

1.  Pass  the  loose  end  once  (if  the  fly  be  a  large 
one,  twice)  through  the  metal  loop,  then,  with  the 
end,  tie  a  single  knot  round  the  gut  above  the  fly 
(thus  you  form  a  sort  of  slip  knot). 

2.  Before  running  up  the  slip  knot  pull  that 
single  knot  firm  and  tight  (but  do  not  strive  to 


1 84  KNOTS 

jam  it  hard  or  you  will  spoil  the  roundness  of  your 
cast  at  that  point). 

3.  Work  the  knot  quietly  down  upon  the  metal 
loop,  pulling  the  gut  line  tight,  and  thus  forming  a 
sort  of  tightened  slip  knot.  Figure  in.  shows  this 
knot  before  it  is  pulled  tight. 


FIG.  III. — Knot  for  Eyed  Hooks,  or  for  Swivel  Loops. 

This  knot,  if  properly  made  and  tightened,  is 
very  strong  indeed,  and  very  little  liable  to  '  neck ' 
or  '  knuckle  '  in  casting.  If  you  do  give  a  sudden 
jerk  to  the  fly  the  slip  knot  upon  the  smooth 
metal  eye  has  sufficient  play  to  avoid  the  cracking 
off  of  the  fly. 

In  a  really  high  and  gusty  wind  I  do  not  think 
that  any  fly  but  one  with  its  loop  made  of  fiddle- 
string  is  entirely  free  from  the  risk  of  being  cracked 
off  when  you  are  using  a  big  salmon  rod.  If  the 
fiddle-string  loop  had  no  other  merit  than  this  one, 
it  would  be  well  worth  while  to  have  a  few  flies  tied 
upon  such  loops  for  use  on  very  windy  days.  On 
such  days  you  have  quite  enough  to  do  to  cast  the 
fly  clean  and  to  get  it  to  the  place  you  wish,  and  it 
is  a  great  blessing  to  feel  that  you  need  not  bother 
about  any  risk  of  snapping  off  the  fly,  or  of  striking 
a  fish  with  a  fly  dangerously  weakened  by  the 
strains  and  jerks  inevitable  in  a  high  wind.  You 
have  only  to  look  at  the  fraying  of  your  gut  cast 


JOCK  PURVIS  185 

that  occurs  during  a  day's  fishing  in  a  gale  of  wind 
to  realise  what  severe  treatment  the  gut  has  had. 

THE  DOUBLE  BLOOD-KNOT  FOR  SALMON  GUT 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — I  promised  you  a  few  wrinkles ; 
here  is  the  greatest  tip  that  I  have  ever  learnt 
about  salmon  fishing,  by  far  the  most  valuable 
piece  of  knowledge,  and  one  that  has  saved  me 
many  salmon  and  many,  many  pounds  in 
salmon  gut. 

Not  only  is  this  the  neatest  knot  that  can  be 
used  to  connect  strands  of  gut,  but  it  is  far  and 
away  stronger  and  more  durable  than  any  other, 
and  the  knot,  instead  of  being  much  weaker  than 
the  average  strand  of  your  cast,  is  quite  as  strong 
as  any  other  part  of  it. 

For  eighteen  years  I  have  shown  this  knot  to 
brother  anglers  and  have  never  met  a  salmon  fisher 
who  knew  it,  and  at  the  present  time  I  believe 
that  not  one  of  the  London  tackle-makers 
knows  how  to  make  it.  Out  of  hundreds  of  casts 
bought  from  all  kinds  of  tackle-makers  that  I  have 
seen  in  the  hands  of  other  fishers,  there  has  not 
been  one  on  which  this  knot  was  used,  although  I 
understand  that  the  knot  is  known  to  one  or  pos- 
sibly two  country  tackle-makers  who  jealously 
preserve  their  secret.  I  owe  the  knowledge  of  it 
to  the  accident  of  finding,  in  the  post  of  chief 
engineer  of  a  White  Star  liner,  upon  which,  in  the 
year  1892,  I  was  travelling  round  the  world,  a 


1 86  KNOTS 

keen  salmon  fisher,  born  and  bred  upon  Tweedside. 
I  hope  that  he  will  forgive  an  exceedingly  grateful 
angler  and  pupil  if  I  name  him  without  adornment 
as  Jock  Purvis.  A  keener  fisherman  never  lived, 
and  when  the  thumping  of  his  engines  was  substi- 
tuted for  the  sweeter  music  of  the  Tweed,  he  con- 
soled himself  by  making  up  flies  and  tackle,  and 
amongst  other  things  in  studying  this  knot. 
Having  obtained  some  casts  upon  which  the 
coveted  knots  were  to  be  seen,  he  set  them  in  wax 
and  cut  sections  of  them  in  order  that  he  might 
examine  them  with  his  microscope.  At  length  he 
perceived  how  the  knot  was  constructed,  and 
finding  accidentally  that  I  also  was  among  the 
salmon  fishers,  he  showed  the  knot  to  me.  But 
to  know  how  this  knot  stands  when  drawn  tight, 
and  to  be  able  to  tie  it  easily,  are  two  very  different 
matters.  With  a  good  deal  of  trouble  we  could 
reproduce  the  correct  knot  from  time  to  time,  but 
the  discovery  of  the  method  by  which  this  knot 
can  be  tied  with  the  very  greatest  ease  by  any  one, 
and  (as  I  have  often  proved)  can  be  tied  in  almost 
complete  darkness  when  you  have  to  hold  your 
hands  against  the  sky  in  order  to  see  anything  at 
all  of  what  you  are  doing — this  was  not  made  until 
later. 

D.O.D. — the  '  dear  Granpa '  of  your  baby  days, 
to  whom  you  and  I  owe  so  much  besides  fishing 
— found  that  out,  and  now  to  tie  the  knot  is  sim- 
plicity itself.  The  only  requisite  is  that  the  gut 
must  be  well  soaked  before  you  begin  it. 


THE  BLOOD-KNOT  187 

The  knot  is  tied  thus  : — 

(i)  Lay  the  ends  of  the  two  strands  of  gut  side 
by  side  as  you  wish  to  tie  them  and  about 


A. 


C. 


FIG.  IV.— a.  The  first  half  of  the  Knot. 

b.  The  whole  Knot,  loose. 

c.  The  Knot,  pulled  tight. 

one-eighth  of  an  inch  apart,  holding  them 
with  your  left  hand,  the  end  of  the  left- 
hand  strand  being  nearer  to  your  body. 
(2)  With  your  right  hand  take  the  nearer  end 
and  wind  it  three  times  round  the  other 
strand  (winding  over  and  away  from  you). 


i88  KNOTS 

(3)  Then  bend  the  end  back  and  poke  it  down 

between  the  two  strands  where  your  left 
thumb  was.     Figure  TV. a. 

That  is  half  the  knot  done :  the  other  half 
consists  in  doing  exactly  the  same  thing  with  the 
opposite  half  of  the  knot. 

(4)  Shift  the  half  knot  as  it  stands  into  your 

right  hand. 

(5)  Take  the  loose  end  and  bring  it  over  the 

strand  towards  you  and  so  wind  three  times 
round  the  link  of  the  gut. 

(6)  Then  bend  it  back  and  poke  it  upwards 

between  the  two  links  so  as  to  lie  beside  the 
other  loose  end,  but  pointing  the  opposite 
way.  Figure  iv.6. 

Then,  to  pull  the  knot  tight,  slightly  moisten  the 
left  finger  and  thumb,  and  with  them  hold  the 
knot  lightly  whilst  you  pull  the  ends  firmly  and 
sharply.  The  knot  will  run  up  into  a  complete 
and  translucent  roll  with  the  two  ends  sticking  out 
at  right  angles,  and  they  can  then  be  cut  off  short. 
Figure  iv.c. 

The  beginner  will  find  it  an  advantage  when  he 
wishes  to  pull  this  knot  tight  to  get  a  friend  to 
hold  the  knot  for  him,  with  a  finger  and  thumb 
moistened  in  water,  so  that  the  tier  has  both 
hands  free  to  pull  the  knot  tight.  But  with  a 
very  little  practice  no  help  is  needed ;  you  hitch 
the  gut  round  the  root  of  your  little  finger  (or  of 
that  and  the  next  finger),  just  as  a  woman  holds 


THE  BLOOD-KNOT  189 

her  wool  in  knitting,  and  that  leaves  your  thumb 
and  finger  of  that  hand  free  to  hold  the  knot,  and 
so  both  to  damp  it  and  to  prevent  it  slipping. 

In  tying  the  knot  one  or  two  things  must  be 
remembered. 

(1)  The  two  ends  must  be  twisted  in  opposite 

directions,  to  get  the  twist  continuous,  or 
else  the  knot  will  be  spoilt.  For  the  knot 
is  nothing  more  than  two  strands  twisted 
together  for  six  complete  turns  and  then 
having  their  loose  ends  brought  back  to 
the  centre  and  stuck  through  this  twist 
in  opposite  directions. 

(2)  The  gut  must  be  well  soaked,  and  it  is  better 

— though  not  essential — to  damp  the  gut  at 
the  moment  before  the  knot  is  pulled  tight. 

Before  cutting  off  the  projecting  ends  it  is  well 
to  give  them  a  good  pull,  and  until  you  become 
well  practised  in  tying  the  knot  the  ends  should  not 
be  shaved  off  too  closely.  Soon  you  will  tie  it 
so  securely  that  the  ends  may  be  cut  off  as  close  as 
a  knife  can  shave  them. 

A  great  advantage  of  this  knot  is  its  economy  of 
the  gut.  It  can  be  tied  so  as  to  leave  ends  of  no 
more  than  half  an  inch  or  even  less,  and  in  a  strand 
of  gut  that  is  running  thinner  and  weaker  towards 
the  end  you  can  bring  the  knot  exactly  to  any 
point  that  you  may  wish.  With  expensive  gut  or 
thick  gut  in  short  lengths  this  is  a  great  benefit, 
both  saving  your  gut  and  giving  you  fewer  knots 


KNOTS 

in  your  cast.  With  this  knot,  when  fishing,  you 
can  and  should  retie  your  cast  on  the  spot,  if  it 
shows  any  sign  of  weakness.  You  can,  if  necessary, 
make  up  a  complete  new  cast  of  single  gut — the 
gut  having  been  soaked,  of  course — in  from  five 
to  ten  minutes.  You  can  also — and  I  find  this  of 
great  use  for  a  rapid  change  of  flies  in  cold  weather, 
or  when  the  light  is  bad  or  at  any  time  when  one 
intends  to  try  a  change  and  then  resume  fishing 
with  your  former  fly — you  can  keep  your  change 
fly  on  a  strand  of  gut  and  soak  that  in  a  tobacco  tin 
or  in  a  bit  of  wet  flannel  (or  in  your  mouth  or 
inside  the  stocking  over  your  waders),  and  then 
cutting  off  the  last  link  of  your  single  gut  (with  the 
fly),  tie  on  your  new  link  ready  tied  to  its  fly.  For 
any  one  who  does  not  often  change  his  flies,  two  or 
three  flies,  each  on  a  good  long  strand  of  gut,  will 
provide  all  his  changes  for  the  day.  And  the  two 
links  should  be  tied  together  whilst  you  may  count 
ten,  in  less  time  than  it  will  take  even  to  tie  on  a 
fly,  far  less,  of  course,  than  the  time  needed  to 
untie  one  fly  and  to  tie  on  another. 

This  most  ingenious  knot  is  nothing  but  a  double 
blood-knot.  Each  strand  of  the  gut  runs  straight 
through  the  knot,  both  lying  within  it  side  by  side 
and  jammed  together  by  the  rolls  outside  it,  so 
that  the  harder  the  gut  is  pulled  the  more  firmly 
do  these  rolls  jam.  The  great  suitability  of  the 
knot  for  tying  gut  is  due  to  the  fact  that  each 
strand  of  gut  does  enter  the  knot  in  this  way  and 
go  right  through  it  without  any  bend  whatever, 


THE  BLOOD-KNOT  191 

and  to  the  strain  being  taken  by  the  jamming  of 
these  two  straight  pieces  together. 

Who  was  the  ingenious  person  who  invented 
this  knot,  or  who  first  thought  of  applying  the 
method  of  the  blood-knot  to  tying  salmon  gut  no 
one  knows  ;  but  he  most  certainly  deserves  the 
perennial  gratitude  of  all  salmon  fishers.1 

1  Quite  lately  there  has  been  introduced  a  twisted  cast,  said  to  be 
Japanese,  made  of  what  looks  like  endless  gut,  which  may  do  away, 
if  it  becomes  generally  used,  with  all  these  risks  and  difficulties.  It 
is  to  be  had  of  Robertson  of  Glasgow.  But  I  think  that  silkworm 
gut  will  hold  its  own  for  some  time,  though  I  do  not  see  why  a  silk 
plaited  thread  coated  with  celluloid  should  not  be  a  cheap  and  perfect 
substitute. 


XX 

OF  WADING,  WADERS,  AND   CLOTHING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — There  are  things  that  you  can 
do  in  your  youth  that  you  have  to  regret  and  to 
pay  pretty  dearly  for  in  after  years,  and  among 
them  is  the  habit  of  much  wading  without  waders. 
It  is  all  very  well  in  summer  when  the  water  is 
warm,  and  feels  only  cool  and  refreshing  as  it 
swishes  round  your  knees,  but  in  spring  and  in  late 
autumn,  when  the  water  is  nearly  freezing  and  the 
air  often  is  actually  at  freezing-point,  you  can  wade 
unprotected,  and  no  doubt  you  will  do  it,  but  it  is 
an  act  of  boyish  folly  which,  if  you  fish  much,  will 
ensure  for  you,  as  it  has  done  for  me,  agonising 
cramps  and  much  rheumatism  in  later  years. 

Even  in  warm  weather  it  is  a  pretty  foolish  thing 
to  do  regularly,  or  except  as  an  occasional  venture, 
but  in  really  cold  waters  you  should  be  warned 
most  earnestly,  not  only  to  wear  good  waders,  but 
also  to  have  thick  clothes  and  warm  underclothing. 
Standing  in  cold  water  for  hours  together  takes  all 
the  heat  from  your  limbs,  and  the  moisture  and 
perspiration  condenses  on  the  inner  side  of  the 
waders,  which  become  quite  damp,  and  the 
knickerbockers  that  are  rubbing  against  the  damp 


192 


CRAMP  193 

waders  are  kept  damp  also,  and  this,  if  you  fish 
much,  brings  on  to  a  certainty  cramps,  rheumatism, 
or  sciatica  in  later  years.  But  if  you  always,  when 
wading,  will  wear  a  pair  of  thick  woollen  drawers, 
you  will  find  that  your  legs  keep  dry  and  warm, 
however  damp  the  outer  clothing  may  get  and 
however  thin  it  may  be.  The  underclothing  next 
your  skin  keeps  dry  notwithstanding  that  moisture 
goes  on  condensing  on  the  inner  side  of  the  cold 
wader.  Years  of  neglect  on  my  part  have  taught 
me  a  severe  lesson,  for  they  have  made  cramp  in 
the  feet  and  thighs  a  dread  enemy  in  spring  and 
late  autumn  fishing,  and  I  urgently  beg  you  not  to 
neglect  this  warning.  If  you  do  find  yourself  a 
victim  of  cramp,  however,  half  a  teaspoonful  of 
bicarbonate  of  soda — which  you  can  get  in  almost 
every  house  because  the  cook  uses  it  to  make  her 
cakes  light  and  her  plum-puddings  dark — in  a 
wineglass  of  water,  taken  before  you  go  out,  will 
generally  keep  cramp  away  for  that  day. 

In  cold  weather  an  extra  pair  of  socks  pulled 
over  the  feet  of  your  stockings  is  a  good  thing  to 
keep  you  warm,  and  so  is  pulling  the  stocking  tops 
over  one's  knee  instead  of  turning  them  down,  as  is 
commonly  done.  Quite  apart  from  fear  of  cramps 
to  come,  it  is  worth  while  to  keep  warm  because 
it  makes  fishing  so  much  more  pleasant,  and 
because,  if  you  keep  your  legs  warm,  your  hands 
will  not  so  easily  get  to  that  pitch  of  numbed 
stiffness  that  every  salmon  fisher  knows  when 
they  are  utterly  unable  to  untie  a  knot,  and  when, 

N 


194    OF  WADING,  WADERS,  AND  CLOTHING 

after  your  day's  fishing  is  ended,  the  return  of 
warmth  to  your  fingers  can  almost  make  you 
dance  with  pain. 

Stout  brogues  with  good  nails  are  another 
essential  to  comfortable  wading  in  heavy  water, 
and  to  keep  the  nails  renewed  will  save  you  many 
a  ducking  in  places  where  the  wading  is  bad. 
You  should  buy  a  few  pennyworths  of  stout  hob- 
nails, and  then  you  can  always  with  a  stone  drive 
a  few  nails  into  the  soles  of  your  brogues  if  you 
find  your  foothold  bad.  If  you  get  much  fishing 
it  is  well  worth  while  to  spend  a  shilling  or  two 
on  an  iron  foot,  such  as  cobblers  use  to  put  inside 
a  boot  when  they  wish  to  hammer  nails  in  the  sole, 
but  if  you  have  not  got  such  a  foot,  a  good  wedge- 
shaped  stone  slipped  inside  the  brogue  will  serve 
the  purpose.  But  do  not  hammer  nails  into  a 
sole  when  it  is  very  dry,  or  you  will  find  that  whilst 
you  are  hammering  in  one  nail  half  a  dozen  others 
near  it  will  start  up  and  become  quite  loose. 
Soak  the  leather  and  then  drive  your  nails 
into  it. 

Great  controversy  rages  in  the  smoking-rooms  of 
fishing  inns  as  to  whether  you  should  or  should  not 
wear  a  strap  round  your  waist  when  wading  in 
dangerous  waters.  Many  anglers  assert  that  if 
you  do  use  a  belt,  and  do  not  allow  the  water  to  get 
freely  into  your  waders,  if  you  should  have  to 
swim  for  your  life  the  buoyancy  of  your  legs  will 
drown  you  by  causing  your  head  to  go  under  water 
and  your  feet  to  bob  about  on  the  surface  like 


SWIMMING  IN  WADERS  195 

corks.  I  have  even  met  men  who  vowed  that  they 
had  seen  this  happen.  Well,  that  is  all  utter 
nonsense.  A  salmon  fisher  who  has  been  swept 
away  by  the  stream  may  be  stunned  or  numbed 
by  having  his  head  or  his  limbs  struck  hard 
against  a  boulder,  or  he  may  be  dazed  by  the 
knocking  about  that  he  gets  when  he  is  trying  to 
struggle  to  his  feet  in  a  swift  current  that  is 
tumbling  him  along  down  the  stream,  but  he  has  no 
need  to  fear  the  result  of  having  air  in  his  waders. 
His  feet  will  not  bob  about  on  the  surface  or  sink 
his  head.  I  have  tried  it  more  than  once  by 
deliberately  upsetting  out  of  a  boat  when  crossing 
the  river  in  my  waders,  and  the  result  is  nothing  of 
the  sort.  The  buoyancy  is  enough  to  keep  your 
legs  well  up,  but  it  does  not  bother  you  at  all,  and 
you  swim  quite  easily,  although  the  clumsiness  of 
the  waders  makes  you  very  slow,  and  the  weight  of 
water  in  the  waders  makes  it  difficult  to  get  out  if 
the  bank  is  high.  Indeed,  when  the  legs  of  the 
waders  do  fill  with  water  it  becomes  much  harder 
to  swim,  although  you  can  do  it  well  enough  if  you 
swim  carefully  and  keep  calm  and  go  with  the 
stream.  The  real  danger  is  that  when  you  slip 
in  heavy  water  you  struggle  to  recover  yourself 
and  get  greatly  knocked  about  and  flustered  in  the 
attempt  to  regain  your  footing  or  to  reach  the 
bank  at  the  point  where  you  fell  in. 

You  cannot  be  too  careful  when  you  have  to 
cross  swift,  glassy  currents.  They  are  generally 
much  stronger  than  they  look,  and  when  the  river 


196     OF  WADING,  WADERS,  AND  CLOTHING 

is  rising  you  must  be  specially  careful  in  such  places 
— one  inch  more  water  may  make  them  ten  times 
more  dangerous  than  they  were  before.  Always, 
if  possible,  find  a  stout  staff  with  which  to  steady 
yourself  and  to  feel  your  way  in  heavy  water,  but 
if  two  of  you  have  to  cross  dangerous  water  or  a 
rising  river,  go  in  together  walking  abreast  (facing 
across  the  stream),  and  let  each  with  one  hand 
grip  fast  the  shoulder  of  the  other  at  arm's  length. 
Wading  so,  you  support  each  other,  and  you  can 
cross  water  where  one  man  alone  would  be  swept 
away;  the  upper  wader  breaks  the  force  of  the 
current  and  is  himself  supported  by  the  lower  one. 
Not  only  when  you  have  to  cross  the  stream, 
but  always  when  you  are  wading  in  big  waters, 
unless  the  weather  has  been  absolutely  settled, 
you  should  be  on  the  look-out  for  any  rising  of  the 
river.  In  most  rivers  that  have  their  source 
amongst  the  mountains  a  sudden  rise  of  the  water 
may  occur  at  the  most  unexpected  time.  Heavy 
rain  overnight  and  many  miles  away  from  you,  or 
a  thunderstorm  amongst  the  hills,  may  fill  the 
mountain  streams,  and  many  hours  later,  when  you 
are  fishing,  with  no  idea  of  what  is  coming,  the  river 
will  suddenly  rise  and  give  you  precious  little  time 
to  make  yourself  safe.  The  first  signs  that  you  will 
see  are  little  straws,  chips,  and  dry  leaves  floating 
by,  and  if  you  look  at  the  edges  of  a  gravel  bed  the 
water  begins  to  swell  up  round  the  dry  stones, 
as  in  a  cup  that  is  brimming  over,  in  a  way  that  is 
unmistakable.  But  when  you  see  those  straws 


REPAIRING  WADERS  197 

and  bits  of  grass  floating  by,  look  about  you,  and 
make  sure  that  your  retreat  is  safe ;  a  rising 
salmon  river  may  be  a  very  dangerous  thing,  and 
many  of  them  rise  very  fast.  I  have  reached  the 
bank  more  than  once  to  find  that  the  water  was 
already  four  or  five  feet  deep  where  I  had  been 
wading  comfortably  two  minutes  earlier,  and 
there  are  few  salmon  fishers  who  have  not  had 
pretty  narrow  escapes  from  a  dangerous  swim  and 
the  loss  of  their  rod,  if  nothing  worse. 

There  are  one  or  two  more  points  about  waders. 
Always  patch  your  waders  before  they  are  quite 
worn  through  rather  than  after  waiting  until  they 
have  once  let  in  the  water.  As  you  know,  the 
material  consists  of  two  sheets  of  strong  twill  or 
canvas-like  material  with  a  layer  of  rubber  between 
them.  Take  a  patch,  cut  out  of  an  old  wader, 
heat  it  at  the  fire,  and  you  can  easily  split  it  into 
thinner  sheets,  each  having  the  outer  twill  and 
either  a  thick  or  a  thin  slice  of  the  rubber  core  that 
lies  between  them.  Then  with  a  tin  or  a  tube  of 
india-rubber  solution  you  can  mend  the  worn  place 
quite  easily,  and  the  thinner  patch  will  stick  fast 
where  a  thicker  one  would  unduly  stiffen  the 
material,  and  consequently  would  very  soon  have 
got  rubbed  off  in  fishing.  The  tendency  to  rub 
off  always  exists  in  some  degree,  but  it  can  be 
cured  by  the  use  of  a  most  excellent  stuff  lately 
invented,1  which  seems  to  vulcanise  or  harden  the 
rubber  and  makes  a  new  patch  stick  absolutely 

1  Called  Goodrich's  cold  vulcanising  solution  and  acid. 

N2 


198     OF  WADING,  WADERS,  AND  CLOTHING 

fast.  I  believe  in  putting  on  one  very  small 
patch  barely  covering  the  worn  spot  on  the 
waders,  and  then  putting  over  that  a  much  larger 
piece  of  thin  material  just  to  protect  the  first 
patch.  If  you  have  no  patching  material  some 
celluloid  varnish  soaked  into  a  place  that  is  wear- 
ing will  keep  it  water-tight  for  a  long  time. 

The  fishing  life  of  waders  depends,  first,  on  their 
being  a  good  fit,  for  badly  fitting  waders  wrinkle 
and  rub  together  and  very  soon  cut  through  at 
the  places  where  they  rub ;  and,  secondly,  it 
depends  on  the  care  used  in  turning  them  inside 
out  to  be  dried  and  in  turning  them  back  again. 
Nothing  destroys  waders  more  than  carelessly 
tugging  and  tearing  at  them  to  get  them  inside 
out,  and  you  should  be  very  sure  of  the  persons 
who  have  to  do  this.  It  is  an  owner's  job. 

As  laces  for  your  brogues  you  will  find  nothing 
better  than  a  bit  of  common  plaited  blind  cord, 
and  four  or  five  feet  of  the  same  cord  makes  a  most 
useful  sling  with  which  to  carry  a  salmon.  You 
double  the  cord  and  make  a  slip  knot  at  his 
tail,  then  pass  the  loose  ends  through  the  fish's 
gills  and  out  of  his  mouth,  double  him  up  into 
a  half-circle  and  knot  the  ends,  with  a  half  hitch 
or  two,  round  the  tail  again.  You  can  easily 
carry  a  couple  of  small  fish  of  8  or  10  Ibs.  apiece 
on  the  same  string  by  looping  your  string  round 
the  tail  of  one,  then  passing  it  through  the 
gills  of  both,  and  fastening  it  to  the  tail  of  the 
second  one. 


199 

The  socks  that  are  worn  over  the  waders,  to 
protect  them  from  being  cut  or  rubbed  through 
by  the  sand  and  small  stones  that  get  into  your 
brogues,  should  be  good  thick  ones.  It  is  a  good 
plan  to  have  the  soles  of  these  socks  double  knitted, 
or  else  roughly  darned  with  coarse  wool  to  about 
twice  the  ordinary  thickness,  and  they  will  then 
last  very  much  longer,  and  your  waders  will  do  the 
same. 

Now,  as  to  the  general  colour  of  one's  clothes. 
Don't  have  any  bright  colours  about  you,  any 
visible  handkerchief  or  cuffs,  and  if  you  wear  a 
white  collar  when  fishing — you  shouldn't — take 
care  that  it  is  hidden  by  turning  up  the  collar  of 
your  coat.  Salmon  have  very  sharp  eyes,  and 
though  you  may  catch  salmon  if  you  are  dressed 
in  white  clothes  or  in  all  the  colours  of  the  rainbow, 
yet  your  chances  of  catching  them  will  be  much 
better  if  they  have  not  already  seen  you  when  the 
fly  comes  to  their  notice.  As  your  mother  says, 
you  seem  to  catch  more  if  you  look  like  a  tramp. 
Sober  colours  that  suit  reasonably  with  the  colour 
of  banks  and  trees  are  much  the  best  thing  to 
wear. 

A  big-brimmed,  soft  felt  hat  is  a  great  joy  in 
heavy  rain.  It  keeps  out  the  wet  and  does  not  get 
sodden  and  heavy,  and  it  acts  like  an  umbrella 
in  keeping  the  rain  from  running  down  your  neck 
inside  your  clothing.  Such  rain  as  soaks  through 
one  can  be  endured,  but  I  have  yet  to  meet  the 
fisherman  who  is  really  happy  when  the  rain  is 


200    OF  WADING,  WADERS,  AND  CLOTHING 

running  down  his  neck.  And  salmon  take  well — 
or  often  take  well — in  heavy  rain,  so  don't  be 
persuaded  to  take  shelter  or  to  stay  at  home  just 
because  it  is  raining  hard.  That  is  the  very 
chance  on  which  I  have  many  a  time  taken  the 
best  fish,  but  when  I  do  fish  in  rain  I  like  to  have  a 
good  hat  to  turn  the  rain.  On  very  wet  days,  too, 
the  short  cape  taken  off  an  old  ulster  and  put 
round  the  shoulders,  and  buttoned  or  tied  only  at 
the  neck,  makes  a  very  good  waterproof  to  fish  in. 
It  throws  off  nearly  ah1  the  water,  and  does  not 
make  you  hot  and  impede  your  fishing  as  the  usual 
fishing  mackintosh  does.  But  the  cape  should 
be  a  very  short  one  and  fairly  heavy. 


XXI 

TACKLE   AND    ACCESSORIES 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — There  is  no  need  to  repeat  the 
A  B  C.  These  things  you  may  find  in  many  books. 
I  have  said  something  about  rods  in  an  earlier 
letter  (No.  i).  If  you  choose  a  rod,  be  sure  that 
it  is  not  a  very  whippy  one.  A  rod  that  feels  as 
if  it  had  no  backbone  is  a  bad  rod  for  salmon 
fishing,  but  if  for  trout  it  is  a  perfect  curse.  And 
though  a  whippy  rod  undoubtedly  has  merits  in 
the  eyes  of  some  anglers,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  it  is  the  worst  possible  form  of  rod  for  a 
beginner.  He  wants  not  a  heavy  rod,  nor  neces- 
sarily a  stiff  rod,  but  one  with  a  quick,  springy 
action,  bending  more  at  the  top  than  in  the  butt. 
I  think  that  split  cane  without  a  steel  centre  gives 
very  nearly  the  perfection  of  action.  A  perfect 
greenheart  can  fully  equal  it  in  action,  but  is  not 
so  durable  nor  so  free  from  risk  of  purely  acci- 
dental breakages,  and  such  greenhearts  are  not 
so  common  as  are  perfect  rods  of  cane.  For 
salmon  fishing,  as  you  know,  I  use  rods  with  steel 
centres,  because  I  happen  to  have  three  beautiful 
rods  of  that  kind,  but  I  think  the  steel  centre  is  a 
mistake,  and  the  rod,  if  it  be  really  well  made, 
is  not  only  cheaper  but  better  without  a  steel 


201 


202  TACKLE  AND  ACCESSORIES 

centre,  and  the  action  is  '  sweeter '  and  more 
lively. 

For  the  joints  of  the  rod  no  vaseline  should  ever 
be  used.  It  never  should  be  used  for  any  brass 
work.  A  bit  of  hard  mutton  fat — the  cold  fat  of 
any  cooked  joint  of  mutton — is  much  the  best 
thing  to  use.  It  will  keep  sweet  for  weeks,  and  the 
least  rub  of  it  will  prevent  the  joint  from  sticking 
and  help  to  keep  the  wet  out  of  it. 

To  free  a  sticking  joint  there  is  a  contrivance 
called  the  Spanish  windlass.  Double  a  bit  of 
string  and  twist  it  round  the  upper  ferrule  so  as  to 
bring  the  loop  close  to  the  joint.  Then  put  a 
similar  loop  of  string  twisted  round  the  opposite 
way  on  the  lower  ferrule.  Put  a  bit  of  stick 
through  each  loop,  and  then  a  very  great  leverage 
can  be  got  to  twist  the  ferrules  in  opposite  direc- 
tions. 

I  learnt  a  useful  lesson  in  1899  from  a  Norwegian 
boatman.  Whilst  he  was  trying  to  get  a  4^  Ibs. 
yellow  trout  into  the  landing-net  the  trout  sud- 
denly dashed  under  our  boat  and  broke  the  top  of 
my  rod  short  off  at  the  joint.  After  the  fish  was 
secured  we  went  ashore  to  refit.  There  was  a  spare 
top  in  the  net  handle,  but  the  difficulty  was  to  get 
out  the  brass  part  of  the  broken  top,  which  was 
stuck  fast  in  the  joint  with  only  a  quarter  of  an 
inch  projecting.  We  were  miles  away  from  home, 
and  I  thought  the  game  was  up,  when  Olaf  began 
to  run  about  and  picked  up  an  enormous  piece  of 
stone  weighing  about  40  Ibs.,  but  having  one  very 


A  ROUGH  AND  READY  VICE  203 

sharp  edge.  He  got  me  to  hold  the  broken  joint  on 
a  round  boulder,  then  he  carefully  placed  the  sharp 
edge  of  his  rock  on  the  projecting  quarter  of  an  inch 
of  brass  and  bore  heavily  upon  it.  Of  course  this 
held  it  like  a  vice,  and  I  was  able  with  ease  to 
twist  off  the  sound  part  of  the  rod  and  put  in  the 
spare  top. 

Reels. — Always  see  that  your  reel  is  firmly 
fastened  on  the  rod  before  you  fish  for  salmon.  In 
the  excitement  of  the  fight  you  are  very  apt  to 
loosen  it,  and  quite  a  number  of  times  I  have 
known  a  fisher's  reel  fall  off  and  generally  the  fish 
has  been  lost  by  it.  It  has  happened  to  me — I 
think  more  than  once — and  only  a  fortnight  ago, 
on  my  last  day's  salmon  fishing,  I  saw  it  happen  to 
a  friend  landing  the  third  salmon  of  his  life,  a 
fish  of  26  Ibs.,  foul  hooked  in  the  back  fin.  How- 
ever, help  was  at  hand,  and  he  was  able  to  get  the 
reel  on  again  and  ultimately  to  land  the  fish, 
although  it  had  been  actually  ashore  on  the  op- 
posite bank  and  was  leaping  and  splashing 
eighty  yards  away  from  him  when  he  got  the  reel 
in  its  place  again. 

You  ought  to  get  a  good  reel,  and  they  are  not 
cheap.  But  a  cheap  reel  is  seldom  a  really  reliable 
one,  and  any  injury  by  a  slight  blow  or  by  accidents 
which  are  often  quite  unavoidable  at  the  river-side 
may  cost  you  a  day's  fishing  or  more.  You  ought 
to  have  two  reels,  one  with  a  light  and  one  with  a 
heavy  line,  ready  and  in  working  order,  and  you  are 
then  reasonably  independent  of  accident.  Never 


204  TACKLE  AND  ACCESSORIES 

lay  a  reel  down  upon  sand.  A  few  grains  of  sand 
may  choke  or  spoil  it  altogether. 

Lines. — Your  lines  must  be  dried  every  night, 
and  before  being  put  away  for  the  season  should 
be  fully  put  out  and  left  to  dry  for  two  or  three 
days.  A  good  plan  is  to  wind  your  lines  round 
the  legs  of  a  table,  and  there  is  nothing  equal  to 
the  lumpy  legs  of  a  billiard-table  for  winding  lines 
on.  Twelve  yards  go  to  each  round,  and  you  can 
easily  put  three  or  four  lines  out  on  one  table. 

Hooks. — See  that  your  hooks  are  as  stout,  stiff, 
and  rigid  as  possible.  A  great  many  hooks  are 
unreliable,  they  bend  open  or  even  break  behind 
the  barb.  The  best  that  I  have  found  are  Adling- 
ton's  Dublin  hooks.  And  the  points  should  be 
extremely  sharp,  and  the  line  of  the  point  should 
be  parallel  to  the  shank,  not  turned  out.  The 
latter  is  a  fad  based  on  the  fallacy  that  the  line 
of  the  shank  is  the  line  of  the  pull,  and  that  to  turn 
the  point  out  a  little  will  ensure  its  burying  itself 
deeply.  Just  think  :  a  flexible  line  is  attached  to 
the  head  of  the  fly  and  is  pulling  the  point  of  the 
hook  against  something.  Take  a  fly  with  a  foot  of 
gut  or  string  and  try  the  effect  of  putting  the  point 
against  anything  and  pulling  on  the  string.  You 
will  see  instantly  that  the  line  of  pull  is  directly 
from  point  to  head. 

I  have  found  bronzed  hooks  generally  to  be 
badly  tempered,  and  often  in  the  present  patterns 
the  point  is  made  so  finely  tapering  that  the 
extreme  point  is  apt  to  break  off  in  the  fish,  leaving 


HOOKS  205 

you  with  a  blunted  hook,  which  you  may  not  notice 
until  you  have  lost  a  good  fish  or  two  which  have 
risen  and  have  not  been  held. 

Sharpness  is  vital,  the  fish's  skin  is  tough  and 
shiny,  and  you  must  always  have  a  tiny  slip  of 
whetstone  and  see  that  every  hook  you  use  is  as 
sharp  as  a  needle.  The  point  often  gets  blunted 
whilst  you  are  landing  a  fish  by  his  rubbing  it 
against  the  gravel,  and  often  gets  blunted  by  a 
careless  cast  slashing  the  sand  or  the  bank  behind 
you.  If  in  casting  you  touch  a  stone  behind  you 
with  the  fly  you  may  hear  a  click  and  your  fly  has 
now  neither  point  nor  barb.  If  you  do  hear 
your  fly  touch  the  gravel,  stop  at  once  and  examine 
the  point.  How  many  dozens  of  good  fish  I  have 
known  lost  from  this  cause. 

Double  hooks  I  do  not  like ;  my  own  experience 
of  them  is  altogether  unfavourable.  But  in  very 
dark  or  heavy  water  they  help  to  sink  the  fly.  In 
repeated  trials  that  I  have  given  to  double  hooks 
I  have  lost  an  enormous  number  of  fish  upon  them, 
both  by  failing  to  drive  the  hooks  home  at  the 
rise,  and  by  their  coming  out  later  on.  And  in 
October  1900  I  landed  a  fish  of  16  Ibs.  upon  a 
large  double  hook,  and  I  noticed  that  it  was  then 
held  by  the  left  hook  only.  But  there  were  five 
other  holes  quite  near  the  existing  hold,  and  the 
place  where  the  other  hook  had  held  was  cut  to 
ribbons.  Each  hook  had  penetrated  to  the  bone 
and  had  been  levering  the  other  out  as  the  fish 
ran  about  and  the  pull  came  from  different  direc- 


206  TACKLE  AND  ACCESSORIES 

tions.  But  the  loss  of  a  fish  of  over  40  Ibs.,  as  I 
believe,  on  the  i5th  September  1903,  ended  my 
last  trial  of  double  hooks.  After  eleven  minutes' 
play  from  the  time  when  I  was  able  to  look  at  my 
watch  the  hook  came  away,  and  I  found  that  the 
fish  had  grubbed  and  scratched  the  exposed  hook 
against  the  stones  until  he  had  opened  out  the 
hook  that  held  him.  With  a  single  hook  he  had 
been  mine. 

For  very  small  flies  I  like  eyed  hooks.  They  last 
longer  and  are  easily  changed  ;  they  are  cut  off  the 
gut  and  a  new  fly  is  tied  on  in  an  instant  with  the 
sliding  knot.  The  time  when  you  are  driven  to 
your  small  flies  is  the  very  time  when  you  wish  to 
change  the  fly  fairly  often. 

I  think  the  best  thing  in  the  way  of  a  box  to 
carry  one's  salmon  flies  is  an  aluminium  pocket 
cigar-case,  with  a  slip  of  flannel  or  of  old  blanket 
gummed  into  each  half,  in  order  to  hook  the  flies 
in  it.  This  will  hold  about  forty  flies,  and  a  couple 
of  spare  casts  will  go  comfortably  round  under  the 
rims.  The  common  tackle-makers'  cases,  with 
metal  clips  to  hold  the  flies,  rust  the  hooks  unless 
you  never  put  a  wetted  fly  back  into  them. 
Whatever  form  of  fly-box  you  use  it  should  be  left 
open  to  dry  after  wet  flies  and  gut  have  been  put 
in  it,  or  else  some  fine  day  you  will  find  a  lot  of 
your  best  flies  and  gut  totally  rotteji. 

As  a  bag  to  carry  salmon  (or  waders)  there  is 
nothing  to  equal  the  ordinary  carpenter's  basket, 
called  a  '  frail.'  You  want  a  slip  of  sacking  to 


ALDER  LEAF  207 

keep  the  frail  clean.  With  a  good  frail  and  a  stout 
stick  for  the  shoulder  you  can  easily  manage  to 
carry  three  big  fish  or  four  smaller  ones.  Besides, 
you  can  carry  the  frail  and  a  rod  over  the  same 
shoulder,  leaving  one  hand  free. 

Freeing  tackle.  At  first  you  will  often  catch 
the  bottom  towards  the  middle  or  end  of  your  cast. 
The  beginner,  to  free  his  fly,  keeps  on  pulling,  but 
that  is  not  the  way  to  do  it.  Whether  you  are 
fishing  fly  or  anything  else,  directly  you  find  that 
you  have  caught  the  bottom  you  should  cease  to 
pull  and  let  the  line  go  slack  so  that  the  water 
may  wash  the  line  and  gut  down-stream  of  the 
point  where  the  fly  is  hooked  up.  Then  after  a 
few  seconds,  if  you  raise  your  point  firmly,  you 
will  generally  find  your  hook  comes  free,  the  actual 
pull  on  it  having  come  as  a  down-stream  pull  from 
the  gut  which  has  been  carried  past  it  by  the 
current.  Now  as  to  gut.  I  do  not  think  staining 
the  gut  any  strong  colour,  black,  blue,  or  yellow, 
is  an  advantage.  I  think  clear  gut  with  no 
glitter  is  the  best,  and  you  will  think  so  if  you 
hold  it  against  the  sky  beside  a  stained  strand. 
And  the  glitter  can  be  wholly  removed  by 
a  few  rubbings  of  the  new  gut  cast  with  the 
crushed  leaf  of  an  alder.  The  alder  grows  by 
every  river-side ;  its  leaf  stains  the  outside  of  gut 
green.  The  gut  looks  like  a  thread  of  grass  until 
the  green  colour  washes  off,  and  in  a  very  short 
time  all  glitter  disappears  also — a  most  invalu- 
able tip  for  sunny  weather. 


XXII 

ON   SPAWNING  SALMON 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — John  Kirkbride  in  1837 
lished  his  Northern  Angler,  and  in  it  gives  the  best 
description  that  I  know  of  all  the  old  north- 
country  flies,  whether  hackled  or  winged,  and 
whether  for  trout  or  salmon.  But  he  also  gives 
the  view  of  salmon  spawning  that  was  current  in 
his  time,  and  he  tells  us  the  kind  of  stuff  that  had 
been  solemnly  sworn  to  by  the  greatest  pundits  of 
that  day.  He  says :  '  According  to  Mr.  Halliday 
and  Mr.  Little,  two  witnesses  examined  before 
a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  spawning 
is  accomplished  in  the  following  manner.  The 
male  and  female  fish  select  a  suitable  place  in 
the  running  water  where  the  bottom  is  gravelly, 
and  play  round  it  for  some  time.  They  then 
begin  to  make  a  furrow  by  working  up  the  gravel 
with  their  noses.  When  the  furrow  is  made  they 
throw  themselves  on  their  sides  and  rubbing 
against  each  other  shed  their  spawn  into  it ;  and 
they  cover  the  furrow  with  loose  gravel  as  they 
proceed  upwards.  .  .  .  Although  the  roe  of  the 
female  contains  from  17,000  to  20,000  eggs, 
only  one  can  be  excluded  at  a  time.  The  fish, 
therefore,  continue  daily  increasing  the  number 


208 


THE  ONION  BED  THEORY  209 

of  furrows  for  several  days  and  form  a  bed  about 
twelve  feet  by  eight  or  ten.  The  spawning  bed 
is  easily  known  by  the  thrown-up  gravel ;  by  some 
it  is  said  to  resemble  an  onion  bed.  Mr.  Halliday 
states  that  he  has  seen  on  one  spawning  bed 
three  pairs  of  fish  at  one  time.  Should  the  male 
fish  be  destroyed  in  the  act  of  spawning,  the 
female  leaves  the  bed  and  retires  to  some  deep 
pool  to  find  another  mate.  .  .  .  The  ova  remain 
in  these  beds  completely  covered  with  loose  gravel 
for  several  weeks  or  till  the  genial  warmth  of  spring 
occasions  their  evolution.  From  the  gravel  the 
young  fish,  their  tails  appearing  first,  are  said  to 
spring  up  like  a  braird  of  corn/ 

What  a  pretty  picture,  isn't  it  ?  These  sub- 
aqueous onion  beds  with  the  little  fishes  sprouting 
up  out  of  each  parallel  furrow  in  the  gravel  in 
thick  rows  like  sown  corn,  and  '  their  tails  appear- 
ing first/  Such  a  masterly  touch  of  detail 
intended,  as  W.  S.  Gilbert  says,  to  give  veri- 
similitude to  an  otherwise  bald  and  unconvincing 
narrative.  I  should  think  even  our  Members  of 
Parliament  must  have  opened  their  eyes  as  they 
gulped  down  these  fables. 

Well,  to  this  day  statements  which  to  me  are 
very  surprising  are  copied  into  some  of  the  very 
best  books  on  angling. 

Even  Mr,  Gathorne-Hardy,  in  his  charming 
little  book  on  salmon  (which  you  should  most 
certainly  read  as  soon  as  you  can),  says  of  the 
spawning  salmon  that  '  the  eggs  are  hidden  most 

o 


210  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

cunningly  and  covered  with  gravel  to  some  feet  in 
depth.'  I  have  been  quite  unable  to  find  any 
eggs  after  the  surface  gravel  has  once  been  scraped 
away,  although  I  have  found  plenty  scattered 
about  among  the  loose  stones  at  the  top,  or  very 
lightly  covered  with  the  sand  and  small  pebbles 
disturbed  by  the  splashings  of  the  spawning 
female.  And  in  our  hatcheries  covering  up  the 
spawn  to  any  depth  has  always,  I  believe,  resulted 
in  failure.  Certainly  the  constant  practice  is 
the  exact  reverse,  the  eggs,  both  of  salmon  and 
trout,  being  kept  in  shallow  troughs  with  a 
constant  stream  of  water  flowing  over  them. 

A  very  recent  book  by  one  of  the  '  champion 
fly-casters/  who  write  books  to  instruct  salmon 
fishers,  makes  the  male  salmon  with  his  nose  dig 
a  hole  in  the  gravel  two  feet  deep,  after  which  the 
fish  place  their  spawn  at  the  bottom  of  this  pit 
and  then  fill  it  in.  None  of  your  furrows  and 
onion  beds  here.  I  wonder  if  the  author  has  ever 
tried,  even  with  a  stout  shovel,  to  dig  a  hole  two 
feet  deep  in  the  gravel  in  a  rapid  stream.  If  he 
had,  I  think  his  views  of  the  feat  performed  by 
the  salmon  would  be  somewhat  modified.  The 
fish  wouldn't,  I  think,  have  much  nose  left  by 
the  time  his  hole  was  dug. 

I  once  met  a  gallant  sportsman  in  Norway  who 
informed  me,  as  of  a  fact  which  brooked  no 
discussion,  that  the  gib  of  the  male  salmon  was 
just  a  digging  tool  to  delve  this  grave  in  the  gravel, 
and  that  this  was  so  was  proved  beyond  all  doubt 


THE  GIB  211 

by  the  fact  that  the  gib  was  gone  in  the  spring, 
and  it  could  only  be  worn  away  on  the  gravel. 
I  hope  that  I  do  his  argument  no  injustice,  but 
this  belief  is  by  no  means  uncommon.  However, 
I  think  that  most  people  now  believe  that  the  use 
of  the  gib  is  for  fighting.  It  is  rigid  only  when 
pressed  from  the  inside  of  the  mouth,  and  when  so 
pressed  a  distinct  though  blunt  and  smooth  point 
can  be  felt,  and  its  apparent  handiwork  in  the 
shape  of  handsome  whitish  scrapes  or  scars  can 
be  seen  on  many  of  the  males  in  spawning  time. 
Besides,  it  is  the  males  alone  that  have  the  gib,  and 
so  far  as  I  could  see  in  many  watchings  the  male 
never  did  anything  that  could  disturb  the  gravel. 
It  is  the  violent  kickings  of  the  female,  which  has 
no  gib,  that  seem  to  be  the  cause  of  the  gravel 
washing  away  down  the  stream.  Besides,  the 
common  trout  spawns  on  redds  or  spawning  beds 
formed  exactly  like  those  of  the  salmon,  and  the 
trout  develops  no  gib  at  all. 

For  about  fifteen  winters  I  have  very  seldom 
missed  going  to  see  the  salmon  spawning,  and  I 
have  watched  closely  some  hundreds  of  salmon 
actually  spawning,  and  the  fish  that  I  have  seen 
do  not  appear  to  be  doing  what  has  been  so  often 
described.  But  it  is  not  very  easy  to  see  accurately 
what  is  happening  on  a  gravelly  bottom,  perhaps 
in  stained  water  and  nearly  always  in  a  swift, 
rippling  stream,  which  is  the  position  commonly 
chosen  by  salmon  for  the  purposes  of  spawning. 
But  twice  I  have  seen  fish — big  salmon — spawning 


212  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

in  water  which,  though  clear  and  fairly  swift, 
was  running  over  a  smooth  gravel  bed  and  was 
not  rippling  water,  so  that  the  fish  could  be  seen 
perfectly,  and  even  the  eggs  coming  from  the 
female  could  be  seen  from  time  to  time,  and  in 
each  of  those  cases  nothing  of  the  kind  was  taking 
place  ;  no  trench  was  being  dug,  no  perceptible 
amount  of  gravel  was  being  disturbed  ;  when  the 
fish  had  left  the  place  one  could  see  that  they  had 
done  nothing  to  cover  over  their  eggs  with  gravel, 
nothing  had  been  disturbed  except  possibly  a 
little  sand  amongst  the  stones.  Of  course  it  is 
unusual  to  find  fish  spawning  in  such  a  place ; 
they  generally  choose  rough  streams  with  loose 
gravel,  and  then  the  gravel  does  wash  down  and 
the  hen  fish  almost  always  has  a  certain  amount 
of  disturbed  gravel  below  her,  sometimes  only  a 
small  patch  a  couple  of  feet  wide  and  three  feet 
long,  sometimes,  especially  in  strong  streams 
and  where  many  fish  have  come  to  spawn,  a  patch 
five  or  six  feet  wide  and  eight  or  nine  feet  long, 
and  occasionally  one  even  larger  than  this.  But 
even  in  strong  streams  fish  often  have  to  spawn 
where  the  bottom  consists  largely  of  stones  not 
yet  rounded  by  the  water,  and  there  I  have  many 
times  seen  them  hard  at  work,  but  with  no  visible 
disturbance  of  the  stones  anywhere  near  them. 
I  do  not  feel  at  all  positive  about  this  matter, 
but  from  what  I  have  seen  I  think  that  the 
disturbance  of  the  gravel  is  not  a  mechanical 
digging  or  stirring  of  it  up,  but  is  an  incidental 


ROE  213 

though  probably  beneficial  result  of  the  violent 
struggles  of  the  fish  in  spawning  in  a  gravelly 
stream.  And  I  certainly  think  that  the  spawn 
does  not  drop  into  the  gravel  straight  below  the 
fish  in  the  slight  hollow  in  which  she  is  usually 
lying,  but,  being  only  just  heavier  than  water,  is 
carried  down  the  stream  by  the  current  and  rolls 
into  crevices  in  the  gravel,  and  the  disturbance  of 
the  gravel  by  the  fish  causes  a  certain  amount  of 
fine  gravel  and  sand  to  wash  down  and  helps 
to  conceal  the  spawn  from  ducks  and  eels  and 
its  other  enemies.  If,  many  yards  below  where 
a  fish  has  been  spawning,  you  stir  up  with  a 
shovel  the  surface  of  the  gravel,  you  can  easily 
see  the  peas  of  salmon  roe  that  you  have  dis- 
turbed being  swept  away.  They  do  not  keep 
on  the  bottom,  but  swirl  up  with  the  water, 
almost,  but  not  quite,  able  to  float.  They  are 
obviously  only  a  very  little  heavier  than  water. 
Roe  in  the  fish  itself,  or  roe  that  has  been  stripped 
artificially  from  the  fish,  is  in  colour  a  fine  bright 
salmon  pink ;  but  roe  quite  ripe  and  spawned 
naturally  by  the  fish  seems  to  be  generally  of  a 
translucent,  purplish  pink  colour,  by  no  means 
easy  to  see  amongst  the  gravel,  though  visible 
enough  the  moment  that  you  stir  it  up  into  the 
current.  But  some  of  the  peas,  even  in  the 
river,  are  of  an  almost  chalky  salmon  pink  colour, 
and  are  very  easily  seen.  These  I  rather  suspect 
to  be  dead  or  infertile  eggs. 

But,  you  may  say,  why  the  kicking  that  one 

02 


214  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

can  see,  unless  it  be  that  the  fish  is  trying  to  rout 
up  the  gravel  ?  My  answer  would  be  twofold. 
First,  that  I  have  seen  the  female  kicking  with  the 
greatest  vigour  in  the  usual  way  when  she  was 
spawning  over  hard  gravel  which  she  was  not 
touching,  and  was  not  disturbing,  and  also  on 
rocky,  or  rather  rough  stony  bottom,  when  she 
was  unable  to  disturb  the  stones,  however  much 
she  wished  it.  Secondly,  that  her  violent  wrig- 
gling or  kicking  is,  I  believe,  done  to  promote  the 
extrusion  of  the  spawn.  At  Christmas  of  1887 
or  1888  I  was  with  your  great-grandfather  upon 
the  Tees  near  Dinsdale  netting  salmon  in  order 
to  obtain  spawn  for  the  fish  hatchery.  The 
method  which  he  discovered  and  adopted  in  order 
to  '  strip  '  the  female  fish  of  her  spawn  was  to 
get  one  of  his  men  to  seat  himself  on  the  bank, 
and  to  hold  the  fish  between  his  knees,  belly 
upwards,  putting  one  hand  under  her  back  and 
with  the  other  gently  forcing  her  tail  downwards, 
when  the  ripe  peas  of  roe  were  squirted  out  in  a 
continuous  stream. 

I  am  going  to  reprint  for  you  his  experience  of 
seeing  salmon  spawning,  but  as  I  was  intending 
to  write  a  letter  to  you  on  this  subject  I  determined 
to  take  the  first  really  good  opportunity  of  again 
seeing  the  fish  spawning  and  to  write  down  on 
the  spot  what  I  saw  without  reference  to  any 
preconceived  theory  of  what  I  expected  to  see  or 
thought  I  ought  to  see.  Well,  yesterday  and  to- 
day the  chance  came  to  perfection,  and  I  did  write 


NOTES  ON  SPAWNING  215 

down  on  the  spot,  as  I  saw  it,  what  was  happening, 
and  here  it  is  : — 

On  Sunday,  January  3,  1909,  a  glorious  mild 
winter's  day,  I  went  up  to  the  Devil's  Water,  a 
tributary  of  the  river  Tyne,  with  one  of  you  boys 
to  see  the  salmon  spawn.  The  stream  is  about 
twenty  to  thirty  feet  wide,  and  on  the  shallows 
was  then  about  eighteen  to  twenty-four  inches 
deep.  We  reached  the  water  at  2.30  P.M.,  and 
here  are  the  notes  of  what  we  saw. 

Three  single  fish  were  lying  above  the  railway 
bridge.  One  was  a  splendid  cock  fish  of  28  to 
30  Ibs.  One  fish  about  7  or  8  Ibs.  lay  within  two 
feet  of  the  bank  below  our  feet,  and  we  could  see 
that  not  a  fin  was  moving,  though  he  lay  in 
quite  fast-running,  shallow  water,  but  resting 
quite  still  upon  the  stones.  You,  D.,  may 
remember  touching  him  with  my  walking-stick, 
to  make  sure  that  he  was  alive,  and  nearly  falling 
on  the  top  of  him  when  he  dashed  off,  splashing 
the  water  all  over  you. 

One  pair,  each  fish  about  18  Ibs.,  was  spawning, 
but  too  far  out  to  be  seen  very  accurately.  They 
lay  in  about  two  feet  of  water,  and  the  disturbed 
gravel  below  them  rose  to  within  sixteen  or 
eighteen  inches  of  the  surface.  Dozens  upon 
dozens  of  patches  of  disturbed  gravel  showed 
the  spawning  grounds  used  by  earlier  fish,  and  the 
farmer's  ducks  were  greedily  going  over  all  the 
shallower  places  and  evidently  doing  themselves 
very  well  indeed.  Higher  up  the  stream  a  fish 


216  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

could  be  seen  splashing  from  time  to  time,  doubt- 
less another  female  spawning,  but  the  water  was 
so  broken  where  she  lay  that  nothing  could  be 
made  out  precisely. 

Then  we  went  below  the  bridge  and  presently 
saw  a  splash.  Coming  opposite  to  the  place 
we  saw  that  it  was  a  female  fish  about  10  Ibs., 
showing  a  very  bright  side  when  she  turned  on 
her  side  to  spawn,  and  we  could  see  her  com- 
panion, a  red  cock  of  12  or  14  Ibs.,  keeping  a  foot 
or  two  below  her,  but  occasionally  ranging 
alongside.  We  crept  to  the  bank,  sat  down  and 
kept  quite  still.  Presently  a  big  wave  appeared, 
coming  up  out  of  a  deeper  pool  forty  yards  below, 
and  then  a  big  cock  fish  of  19  or  20  Ibs.,  with  a 
white  mark  on  his  nose  and  several  more  along  his 
back,  sailed  up  to  the  spawning  pair,  followed  by 
a  female  fish  of  24  or  25  Ibs.  of  a  light  pinky  red 
colour.  The  original  male  sheered  off  across  the 
stream,  but  his  female  only  edged  into  the  shallower 
water,  a  couple  of  feet  nearer  to  us,  and  continued 
to  spawn,  whilst  the  big  new  female  was  throwing 
herself  from  time  to  time,  her  big  male  keeping 
beside  her,  sometimes  a  little  above,  sometimes  a 
little  below  her,  and  overlapping  her  by  about 
half  his  length. 

Owing  to  her  brightness,  the  throw  or  struggle 
of  the  smaller  female  is  very  clearly  seen.  She 
comes  to  the  surface  turning  half  on  her  side 
(and  three  out  of  four  times  on  her  right  side), 
arching  her  back,  and  then  she  gives  five  or  six 


FEMALE  SPAWNING  ALONE 

vigorous,  shuddering  wriggles  or  kicks,  curving  her 
body  and  violently  straightening  it  again,  and 
during  this  series  of  wriggles  she  moves  up- 
stream about  eighteen  inches  or  two  feet.  Then 
she  sinks  to  the  bottom  and  remains  quiet  for 
about  three  minutes.  She  throws  every  three  or 
four  minutes,  but  the  male  less  often.  The  big 
female  throws  at  long  intervals,  and  when  she 
does  so  she  turns  almost  flat  on  her  side. 

Presently,  after  fifteen  minutes,  the  big  female 
turned  and  went  down  the  stream,  followed  by  the 
male.  The  smaller  red  male  then  came  across 
the  stream  and  lay  beside  his  mate  for  six  minutes. 
Then  leaving  her  he  forced  his  way  splashing  up 
the  fast  but  very  shallow  stream  above  where 
they  lay  for  forty  or  fifty  yards,  and  after  a  few 
minutes  he  came  back  down  the  stream  with  a  new 
sweetheart,  passed  his  former  mate,  and  the  two 
then  turned  and  ranged  up  in  the  stream  some 
seven  or  eight  yards  below  her.  She  continued  to 
spawn  alone,  and  threw  four  or  five  times  at 
intervals,  without  any  mate  near  her. 

She  was  lying  in  only  eighteen  inches  of  swift 
water  beside  a  rather  deeper  rush.  No  gravel 
was  disturbed  under  her  head,  but  disturbed  gravel 
began  to  be  visible  (by  the  lighter  side  of  the  stones 
showing)  about  the  level  of  her  tail,  and  some 
continued  for  perhaps  seven  or  eight  feet  below 
her.  She  lay  in  hardly  any  perceptible  hollow ; 
certainly  the  water  there  was  not  six  inches  deeper 
than  that  over  the  gravel  below  her.  Presently 


218  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

her  mate  left  his  new  friend  and  came  up  to  her. 
Two  or  three  times  he  came  alongside  and  a  little 
below  her  and  gave  a  slight  kicking,  but  there  was 
no  vigorous  shuddering  such  as  the  female  gave. 

Then  after  a  time  we  went  down  the  stream  to 
look  for  more  fish.  Presently  we  saw  a  small, 
bright  fish's  head  lying  in  the  water.  About 
twenty  yards  below  was  the  tail  half  of  the  fish, 
a  fairly  bright  little  grilse  of  about  4  Ibs.,  eaten 
away,  backbone  and  all,  as  far  back  as  the  ventral 
fins,  no  doubt  at  all  by  an  otter.  I  went  down 
and  cut  open  this  tail  part,  but  there  was  no  sign 
of  milt  or  of  roe  inside  it. 

At  twelve  minutes  to  four  we  returned  to  our 
former  spawners.  The  female  was  still  at  work  ; 
we  could  see  plainly  that  she  always  rose  to  the 
top  to  throw  the  spawn,  that  her  nose  during  this 
struggle  was  not  on  the  bottom,  and  that  she 
moved  up-stream  a  little  more  than  a  foot  in  the 
process,  but  sank  back  to  rest  at  the  same  spot 
each  time. 

Presently  a  male  appeared  outside  her,  came 
close  behind  her  and  threw,  and  remained  lying 
with  his  head  overlapping  her  tail.  He  threw 
with  ten  or  twelve  wriggling  kicks  much  less 
vigorous  than  hers,  with  his  back  fin  and  back 
showing  out  of  water,  not  visibly  on  his  side, 
and  each  time  he  spawned  he  moved  up  two  feet 
until  nearly  level  with  the  female.  He  did  this 
four  times,  between  3.50  and  4  P.M.,  and  after 
four  o'clock  he  continued  to  do  so  every  minute 


A  RESTING  SALMON  219 

for  some  time.  Probably  he  was  there  when  we 
arrived  and  had  moved  off  into  deeper  water  on 
seeing  us  come,  for  he  returned  to  the  female 
directly  we  sat  still. 

Then  we  had  to  go  home,  but  at  4.15,  above  the 
bridge,  we  saw  a  fish  of  12-14  Ibs.  again  within 
three  feet  of  the  bank  in  eighteen  inches  of  water, 
which  was  running  at  the  rate  of  about  two  to 
three  miles  an  hour,  yet  the  salmon  was  lying 
absolutely  motionless  on  the  bottom,  his  right 
pectoral  fin  pressed  by  the  current  against  the 
upper  side  of  a  stone,  and  the  tail  and  all  the 
other  fins  slack,  except  the  left  pectoral  fin, 
which  was  held  tight  at  a  slight  angle  against  the 
current. 


XXIII 
ON   SPAWNING   SALMON— continued 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — To-day,  the  4th  January  1909, 
you  two  boys  and  your  mother  and  I  went  again 
to  the  Devil's  Water,  and  I  took  up  my  short 
waders  and  a  stout  shovel.  Here  are  the  notes  of 
what  we  saw  : — 

On  a  redd  above  the  bridge  lay  a  cock  fish  of 
about  20  Ibs.  weight,  with  many  white  marks  or 
scars  along  the  back  and  on  the  gill  covers.  He 
was  alone  and  was  lying  in  about  a  foot  of  water, 
and  the  redd,  five  feet  below  him,  rose  to  within 
five  to  six  inches  of  the  surface,  the  water  having 
fallen  several  inches  since  yesterday.  A  small 
hen  fish  about  6  Ibs.  was  lying  close  to  the  bank 
about  twelve  feet  away,  and  almost  opposite  the 
former  fish. 

Below  the  bridge  there  are  no  fish  at  the  place 
where  we  had  seen  them  so  well  yesterday,  but 
two  hundred  yards  lower  down  the  stream  we 
can  see  the  frequent  splash  of  a  fish  lying  just 
above  the  next  pool  on  a  swift  shallow  where  we 
saw  freshly  moved  gravel,  but  saw  no  salmon 
yesterday.  When  we  get  there  we  find  that  the 
splashing  fish  is  a  big  female  of  18  Ibs.  or  more, 
and  lying  beside  her  is  a  male  of  12  or  13  Ibs., 


ON  THE  REDDS  221 

with  many  whitish  marks  along  his  back  and  a 
strongly  marked  white  patch  on  his  nose  about 
the  size  of  a  shilling.  He  lies  slightly  to  the  right 
side  of  the  female  with  his  nose  just  level  with  her 
tail,  and  he  makes  no  visible  movement  at  all, 
although  she  throws  herself  repeatedly  to  spawn, 
with  violent  splashings  and  strugglings,  and  after 
each  effort  sinks  in  the  water  and  drops  back  to 
her  lying-place  near  him. 

Presently  a  second  male  swims  quickly  up  and 
ranges  alongside  the  first  male,  and  then  goes 
over  to  the  other  side  of  the  female  and  lies  nearly 
level  with  her.  Number  one  takes  apparently 
no  notice  for  a  minute  or  two,  then  he  turns  and 
glides  down  the  stream  into  the  deep  water 
below,  followed  after  another  minute  by  number 
two,  who  had  apparently  done  nothing  at  all 
but  come  up,  lie  for  a  minute  quiet  beside  the 
female,  and  then  go  down.  The  female  con- 
tinued to  spawn  alone.  Every  few  minutes 
her  splashings  began,  and  each  time  some  male 
fish  came  up  towards  her  out  of  the  deeps — 
though  not  always  coming  quite  up  to  her — and 
then  dropped  back  again. 

After  half  an  hour  a  big  male  appeared  and 
made  a  rush  at  the  spotty  twelve-pounder,  who 
had  returned  to  his  mate,  and  who  now  bolted 
down-stream  and  hovered  about,  some  seven  or 
eight  yards  below  her.  After  another  half-hour  a 
second  pair  of  big  salmon  appeared  and  lay  at 
first  quite  close  under  my  bank  and  three  or  four 


222  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

feet  from  the  other  pair,  and  there  the  female 
threw  herself  once  to  spawn.  Then  she  edged 
out  across  the  stream  until  she  came  alongside 
the  other  pair,  her  mate  following  her,  and  then 
the  four  salmon  lay  side  by  side  and  almost,  if 
not  quite,  touching  each  other.  Upon  this  I 
slowly  worked  myself  down  the  bank  until  my 
face  was  close  to  the  water  and  within  four  or 
five  feet  of  the  nearest  fish.  Then  one  of  the 
males  came  over  towards  me,  saw  me,  and  bolted 
back  full  tilt  into  the  others,  and  all  but  one 
female  ran  down-stream.  Then  after  a  few 
seconds  she  also  seemed  to  see  me  and  dashed 
off.  Then  the  spotted  fish  of  12  Ibs.  came  up  in 
the  edge  of  the  stream  within  arm's  length  of  me, 
then  moved  out  to  the  lie  or  hollow,  but  im- 
mediately saw  me  and  bolted  away  again.  I 
moved  back  a  foot  or  so  and  pulled  up  three  or 
four  dry  seed  stalks  of  dock  which  had  been 
bent  down,  and  made  them  stand  up  beside  my 
head  so  as  to  break  the  outline  of  it,  and  within 
a  few  minutes  of  doing  so  the  four  salmon  came 
back  with  two  other  much  larger  fish,  male  and 
female.  All  six  fish  lay  side  by  side,  five  of  them 
apparently  touching  each  other,  and  the  sixth 
lying  about  eighteen  inches  away  from  the  group. 
The  actions  of  the  male  fish  were  very  odd  ;  one 
male,  a  very  strong  dark  red  in  colour,  but 
without  a  mark  of  any  sort  and  of  about  16  Ibs. 
weight,  showed  no  hostility  to  the  smaller  spotted 
male  which  lay  beside  him,  but  kept  sliding  up 


DWELLING  TOGETHER  IN  AMITY       223 

against  the  female  on  her  right  side,  pushing  her 
head  slightly  across  the  stream  with  his  shoulder, 
and  getting  his  own  body  across  the  current 
which  washed  him  down  under  the  female,  lifting 
her  back  quite  out  of  water  until  he  had  been 
washed  right  down  under  her  body.  This  he 
repeated  five  or  six  times  with  only  a  very  short 
interval  between  them,  and  it  is  the  only  time 
I  have  ever  seen  that  done  by  a  fish.  Later  on 
two  fish  left  the  redd  and  went  down-stream,  and 
when  the  four  were  left  together  one  big  male 
kept  crossing  over  the  backs  of  the  other  three 
fish,  apparently  sliding  himself  over  their  backs, 
but  always  keeping  his  head  very  much  up-stream 
so  that  he  slipped  across  their  backs  in  a  slanting 
direction.  Possibly  he  was  shedding  his  milt 
over  them  so  that  it  might  be  washed  over  the 
eggs  lying  in  the  gravel;  I  cannot  tell.  The 
current  was  very  fast — quite  a  swift  rapid — and 
the  water  was  about  fourteen  to  eighteen  inches 
deep  in  the  hollow  where  the  fish  lay.  The  gravel 
below  them  rose  to  nine  or  twelve  inches  below 
the  surface,  and  a  bed  of  disturbed  gravel  ex- 
tended about  eight  or  nine  feet  below  the  tails 
of  the  fish  where  they  lay.  I  put  on  my  wading 
boots  and  went  in  to  measure  the  depth  of  water, 
and  to  see  if  any  spawn  could  be  seen  and  where 
it  was  ;  whether  it  was  buried  or  whether  it  was 
on  or  near  the  surface.  I  found  that  the  gravel 
below  the  lie  of  the  fish  was  (as  one  supposed) 
all  loose,  and  at  the  tail  of  the  stream,  where  the 


224  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

water  deepened,  the  gravel  stood  up  quite  steeply, 
obviously  washed  down  over  the  old  unbroken 
gravel  of  the  pool. 

When  I  stirred  the  gravel  with  my  shovel  I 
could  see  at  almost  every  stir  of  the  shovel  a 
few  peas  of  salmon  roe  being  washed  away,  but 
found  it  very  hard  to  bring  up  any  of  the  peas 
of  roe  on  the  shovel.  By  digging  out  solid 
spadefuls  deeper  down  in  the  gravel  I  found  only 
one  or  two  peas  of  roe  out  of  many  spadefuls, 
and  could  not  be  sure  that  even  those  few  were 
really  buried  deep  in  the  gravel.  But  by  scraping 
together  some  of  the  surface  gravel  and  then 
getting  up  a  big  shovelful  of  that,  I  was  able  to 
gather  a  good  many  peas  of  spawn,  though  many, 
indeed  most,  were  washed  away  as  the  shovel  full 
of  gravel  was  being  lifted  in  the  current.  I  could 
get  no  roe  at  all  in  the  hollow  just  where  the  fish 
were  lying,  and  I  am  quite  certain  that  they 
were  not  depositing  any  large  quantity  of  ova 
there  to  be  covered  over  later  on,  for  I  should 
have  seen  the  peas  of  spawn  there  on  disturbing 
the  surface  of  the  gravel  as  easily  as  I  saw  them 
lower  down,  but  I  could  see  none  in  the  hollow, 
none  whatever. 

Again,  I  could  make  out  pretty  clearly  that  the 
spawning  female  fish  was  not  disturbing  the  gravel 
with  her  nose  as  she  threw  the  spawn,  but  that 
she  rose  each  time  to  the  surface  with  back  and 
side  often  well  out  of  water,  giving  vigorous, 
shuddering  kicks,  or  violent,  sudden  wriggles. 


STIRRING  GRAVEL  225 

One  female,  the  biggest  of  all,  got  almost  flat  on 
her  side  each  time  that  she  spawned,  the  other 
two  not  so  much  so. 

Several  times,  out  of  very  many,  with  extremely 
violent  struggling  the  water  was  splashed  about, 
and  sand  and  mud  and  gravel  were  stirred  up, 
but  I  was  unable  to  make  out  that  any  part  of 
the  fish  had  touched  the  bottom.  It  appeared — 
but  I  could  not  be  positive  of  this — that  it  was 
only  the  violent  surging  of  the  water  with  her  tail 
that  caused  the  sand  and  gravel  to  be  stirred 
up  and  washed  down  the  rapid.  Only  very  rarely 
was  sand  or  gravel  visibly  stirred  up.  Each 
time  that  I  saw  gravel  and  sand  stirred  up  the 
fish  shifted  her  position  across  the  stream  a  yard 
or  more  with  much  splashing  and  swirling  of 
water,  and  at  each  stirring  the  fish  was  not  on  her 
side  but  was  swimming  upright,  though  making  a 
swirl  in  the  water  like  that  made  by  the  blade  of 
an  oar.  From  the  almost  invariable  formation  of 
a  redd,  and  always  below  the  spawning  fish  it 
is,  I  think,  pretty  clear  that  the  disturbance  of 
gravel  is  intentional,  and  is  done  to  provide  cover 
for  the  spawn  or  clean  gravel  for  it  to  lie  on,  or 
possibly  for  both  purposes,  but  how  far  the  fish 
attempts  any  gravel-moving  operation  except  her 
natural  kicking  in  a  strong  current  running  over 
gravel,  I  cannot  determine.  But  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  any  touching  of  the  gravel,  and  I  am 
almost  certain  that  there  is  no  grubbing  with  her 
nose  whilst  she  is  throwing  the  spawn.  Possibly 


226  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

she  may  do  something  with  tail  or  fins  to  loosen 
the  gravel  whilst  she  seems  to  be  quiescent  on 
the  bottom,  for  a  spawning  fish  does  not  keep 
absolutely  still  like  a  resting  fish,  but  (and  more 
especially  the  male)  moves  up  and  down  the 
stream,  swimming,  not  merely  resting  on  the 
bottom. 

I  have  said  that  generally  there  is  a  redd,  or 
stream  of  disturbed  gravel,  below  the  spawning 
fish.  Several  times  I  have  seen  fish  spawning 
where  they  had  made  no  such  redd  and  no  dis- 
turbed stones  were  visible.  Once  in  December 
1902,  in  a  big,  clear  water,  I  saw  a  good  female 
salmon  spawning  on  a  hard,  gravelly  bottom 
in  two  feet  six  inches  of  water  and  without 
a  single  disturbed  stone  being  visible.  Every 
time  she  threw  herself,  a  grilse  and  a  couple  of 
sea-trout,  lying  six  or  seven  yards  below  her, 
moved  hurriedly  up  and  had  a  dash  at  the  roe 
a  few  feet  below  her,  and  once  or  twice  her 
mate  swung  round  and  scattered  the  plunderers, 
chasing  them  right  away,  but  no  sooner  did  he 
return  to  his  place  beside  his  companion  than 
they  also  drew  up  to  their  posts  below  her. 

To  return  to  the  4th  January  1908.  What  struck 
us  most — for  the  whole  family  was  there — was 
the  way  in  which  the  males  came  and  went,  and 
apparently  without  jealousy.  Only  once  did  we 
see  a  fish  attack  a  smaller,  and  repeatedly  rival 
males  of  different  sizes  were  ranged  side  by  side 
in  perfect  amity. 


EGGS  NOT  COVERED  UP  227 

Having  seen  all  that  we  could  on  the  redd,  which 
we  had  watched  for  well  over  two  hours,  we 
moved  up  to  the  place  where  continuous  spawning 
had  been  going  on  the  day  before.  The  water 
was  a  good  deal  lower  and  the  fish  had  left  this 
place,  so  that,  according  to  accepted  theories, 
the  hole  in  which  they  had  been  lying  should 
have  been  filled  with  spawn  and  then  carefully 
covered  in  with  gravel  by  the  fish.  I  went  out 
with  my  shovel  to  examine  it. 

The  hollow  was  exactly  as  it  had  been  the  day 
before.  Only  one  pea  of  roe  could  be  found 
in  it,  and  none  by  digging  up  the  bottom,  though 
many  were  found  scattered  amongst  the  surface 
gravel  over  some  twenty  or  thirty  feet  below — 
not  merely  amongst  the  disturbed  gravel  which 
extended  for  only  about  eight  or  nine  feet  below 
the  little  hollow. 

Well,  that  was  the  end  of  our  day.  It  began 
to  grow  too  dark  to  stay  any  longer,  and  the  dog- 
cart was  waiting  for  us,  so  we  went  home,  after 
putting  a  few  peas  of  roe  with  some  gravel  into 
a  bottle  in  order  to  try  the  effect  of  a  little  amateur 
fish-hatching  on  the  part  of  two  very  small  boys. 
The  eggs  all  went  bad  one  by  one,  each  turning 
first  to  the  chalky  salmon  colour  that  I  have 
mentioned  before,  and  then  to  a  dull,  lifeless 
white. 

It  was  almost  impossible  to  desire  a  better  view 
of  the  fish  than  we  had  during  these  two  days. 
Some  results  of  these  observations  did  not  agree 


228  ON  SPAWNING  SALMON 

with  my  former  beliefs  nor  with  what  I  thought 
I  had  seen  in  earlier  years.  We  saw  practically 
no  fighting  among  the  males,  and  very  little  fear 
or  jealousy.  The  milting  of  the  cock  fish  was 
done  very  quietly,  and,  as  far  as  any  movement 
showed,  very  seldom.  For  longish  periods  the 
females  were  alone,  yet  went  on  spawning  busily. 
It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  room  for  a  lot  of 
accurate  observation  before  we  shall  be  very  sure 
of  what  really  does  happen  in  these  wintry  waters 
of  ours. 


XXIV 

TALES   OF   A   GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — I  have  mentioned  already  your 
great-grandfather,  John  Clervaux  Chaytor,  who 
gave  me  my  first  lessons  in  fishing.  He  lived  al- 
most all  his  life  at  Croft  on  the  Tees,  and  he  caught 
his  first  salmon  in  1820,  when  he  was  fifteen 
years  old,  and  his  last  in  the  year  1889.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  Tees  Fishery  Board,  and  was  a 
very  close  observer  of  the  habits  of  all  fish,  and 
about  twenty  years  ago  he  printed  for  private 
circulation  an  account  of  his  observations  in  a 
small  pamphlet  of  some  twenty-seven  closely 
printed  pages.  But  now  very  few  copies  exist, 
and  I  count  it  a  pious  act  to  reprint  here  those 
parts  of  his  notes  which  deal  with  his  observations 
upon  the  spawning  of  the  fish,  and  also  a  few  of  his 
general  observations.  One  most  valuable  wrinkle 
he  gave  me  which  has  often  enabled  me  to  detect 
even  at  a  distance  the  poacher  of  salmon  smolts. 
From  the  old  bridge  at  Croft  he  saw  a  man  at 
least  a  hundred  yards  lower  down  the  river  catch 
a  sturdy  little  fish.  He  said,  '  It  is  a  smelt, 
though  it  is  a  big  one.  You  will  see  him  throw  it 
back.'  I  could  not  imagine  how  he  could  possibly 
tell  this.  It  was  done  by  knowing  the  fact  that 

p  2 


230     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

a  young  salmon,  or  a  parr  or  smolt  of  any  other 
kind,  when  lifted  out  of  the  water,  kicks  and 
wriggles  vigorously  until  actually  secured  by  the 
hand,  whereas  a  small  trout  lifted  out  on  the  line 
almost  always  hangs  quietly  or  at  most  gives  but 
a  few  kicks.  It  is  an  absolutely  certain  way  of 
knowing  a  young  trout  from  a  parr  or  from  a 
smolt. 

NOTES  BY  MY  GRANDFATHER 

When  the  frosty  "nights  of  autumn  set  in,  and 
the  leaves  begin  to  fall,  the  fish  are  impelled  to 
the  exercise  of  their  reproductive  functions. 
They  keep  to  the  streams,  and  the  roe  which  has 
been  slowly  maturing  in  them  increases  rapidly 
in  bulk,  and  at  the  end  of  October  or  the  beginning 
of  November  a  little  fresh  water  will  set  them  to 
work  on  the  streams.  Many  of  the  early-running 
fish  ascend  the  tributaries ;  and  an  old  kipper 
fisher,  who  was  a  native  of  Lunedale,  told  me 
that  they  began  to  look  for  them  in  the  Lune 
about  the  5th  November  ;  and  I  have  found  on  the 
first  of  the  month  a  spawning  bed  in  the  main 
river  that  must  have  been  made  at  least  a  day  or 
two  before.  Before  the  operation  of  spawning, 
as  it  is  seen  in  the  Tees,  is  described,  mention 
may  be  made  of  two  persons  who  might  be  ex- 
pected to  adhere  to  facts.  Dr.  William  Chambers, 
in  an  article  in  Chambers' s  Journal,  says  that  the 
fish  deposit  their  spawn  '  agglutinated  together  '  ; 
and  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  in  Salmonia,  says  that 


ROE  231 

they  make  a  trough  in  which  they  deposit  their 
spawn,  and  then  cover  it  up  with  gravel,  the  male 
fish  in  particular  being  so  energetic  that  he  gets 
the  end  of  his  nose  turned  up.  Both  these 
writers  are  very  wide  of  the  mark  :  the  ova  are 
not  agglutinated,  the  fish  do  not  make  a  trough, 
and  the  male  fish  does  not  get  the  end  of  his  nose 
turned  up,  and  neither  the  female  nor  the  male 
makes  the  slightest  effort  to  cover  them  up. 
The  roe  consists  at  first  of  a  mass  of  membrane 
intermixed  with  blood-vessels  and  small  granular 
bodies  like  sand.  As  these  blood-vessels  increase 
in  size  a  separation  into  two  lobes  becomes 
distinct,  and  the  ova  acquire  the  well-known 
salmon  colour,  at  the  approach  of  the  spawning 
season  occupying  nearly  all  the  cavity  of  the 
abdomen,  which  is  then  greatly  distended.  The 
milt,  or  soft  roe  of  the  male  fish,  consists  of  two 
vessels  which  extend  the  whole  length  of  the 
abdominal  cavity,  filled  with  a  white  leathery 
substance  which  remains  firm  and  solid  till  the 
time  when  it  has  to  sustain  its  part  in  the  re- 
productive process.  Then  it  is  gradually  con- 
verted into  a  thick  milky  fluid,  beginning  to 
liquefy  near  the  vent  from  which  it  exudes  as  it  is 
required.  Omitting  for  the  present  the  question 
of  colour,  the  female  undergoes  little  change 
except  in  bulk.  The  male,  however,  puts  out  a 
remarkable  excrescence,  not  from  the  nose,  but 
from  the  under  jaw.  This  gib,  as  it  is  called, 
wears  a  cavity  in  the  nose,  and  sometimes  grows 


232     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

so  long  that  the  nose  is  actually  divided  by  it ; 
sometimes  it  grows  on  one  side,  and  misses  the 
nose  entirely.  In  very  young  males  it  is  merely 
rudimentary :  that  of  the  scurf  (sea-trout)  is 
smaller  in  proportion  to  its  size  than  that  of  the 
salmon,  and  so  also  is  that  of  the  bull-trout. 
The  gib  disappears  soon  after  spawning,  being 
rapidly  absorbed.  The  condition  of  the  fish 
being  sufficiently  advanced,  they  proceed  to 
select  their  ground,  which  is  by  choice  where  the 
stones  are  not  too  large  nor  too  fast  for  them  to 
move,  nor  too  loose  so  as  to  close  in  upon  them. 
The  strength  of  the  stream  and  the  action  of  the 
fish  cause  the  uprooted  gravel  to  form  beds 
frequently  several  yards  long  when  the  fish  are 
numerous,  among  which  some  of  the  ova  find  a 
resting-place,  being  covered  to  a  depth  of  several 
inches,  while  the  greater  number  are  carried  away 
by  the  stream.  When  they  find  the  conditions 
unfavourable  they  seek  a  fresh  place,  though 
where  there  is  a  considerable  stretch  of  bad  ground 
they  will  persevere  notwithstanding.  They  usu- 
ally begin  near  the  head  of  the  stream,  the  smaller 
fish  in  the  shallower  and  weaker,  and  the  larger 
in  the  deeper  and  stronger  parts  of  the  stream. 
The  operation  is  considered  to  last  about  two 
days  more  or  less,  but  it  is  not  always  continuous, 
as  a  flood  or  other  disturbance  may  retard  it. 
Occasionally  a  combat  takes  place  among  the 
males,  and  they  fight  furiously,  sometimes  inflict- 
ing on  each  other  serious  injuries.  I  have  seen  a 


SPAWNING  233 

hen  fish  which  had  apparently  been  pinched  all 
along  the  back  from  head  to  tail.  The  wounds, 
however,  were  not  deep,  and  did  not  hinder  her 
from  spawning,  as  she  was  taken  on  the  redd  along 
with  several  others.  It  is  not  easy  to  get  a  clear 
view  of  what  happens  beneath  the  waters  of  the 
Tees  at  the  time  of  the  year  when  it  would  be 
most  interesting  to  see  what  goes  on  there.  Wind, 
rain,  snow,  cold,  hush,  floods,  light  and  shade,  in 
various  combinations,  contribute  to  cut  short  or 
to  destroy  altogether  the  chance  of  seeing  clearly, 
and  it  is  not  surprising  that  some  inaccuracy 
should  occur  ;  but  some  fail  to  see,  and  others  to 
comprehend,  what  is  before  their  eyes,  and 
substitute  fancy  for  fact.  Avoiding  that  error 
as  far  as  possible,  I  will  describe  what  I  saw  on 
the  most  favourable  opportunity  that  I  ever  had. 
On  the  6th  November  I  went  to  the  low  stream 
at  Dalton  Batts,  and  found  everything  favourable. 
At  a  height  of  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  some  large 
branches  of  a  plane-tree  projected  horizontally 
over  the  stream,  and  on  one  of  these  I  stood. 
Where  the  streams  met  at  the  bottom  of  the 
island  there  was  a  ridge  of  gravel  terminating  in 
a  point,  which  formed  two  channels  in  the  river 
bed.  In  the  middle  of  the  nearest  channel 
there  was  a  depression  occupied  by  a  pair  of  fish 
which  were  at  rest.  The  male  had  some  skin 
rubbed  off  his  nose,  which  showed  a  white  mark. 
A  few  yards  farther  away,  near  the  top  of  the  ridge, 
another  pair  occupied  a  similar  hole,  the  first  pair 


234     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

being  5  or  6  and  the  other  7  or  8  Ibs.  At  intervals 
the  females,  applying  their  noses  to  the  gravel, 
threw  themselves  on  their  sides  with  their  nose 
pressed  against  the  ground,  and  with  rapid  jerks 
of  the  tail  expelled  a  portion  of  the  ova,  the  males 
remaining  perfectly  still.  Suddenly  a  small  fish, 
which  had  been  close  to  the  edge  of  the  water  and 
directly  under  my  feet,  rushed  in  behind  white 
nose's  mate,  and  instantly  fell  back  again.  This 
manoeuvre,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
the  ova,  was  repeated  every  time  the  spawning 
fish  '  threw/  and  only  then,  but  was  put  an  end 
to  by  a  large  fish  which  came  bustling  up  from 
the  deep  stream  below.  He  made  straight  for 
white  nose  and  his  mate,  and  settling  himself  in 
their  hole,  which  he  completely  filled,  sent  them 
both  adrift ;  then  he  went  to  the  other  pair,  and 
did  the  same  to  them.  Finally  he  swept  away 
the  pirate,  which  was  a  female,  with  his  tail, 
and  disappeared  after  the  others  in  the  stream 
below.  Next  day  the  water  was  more  discoloured, 
and  only  one  fish  was  to  be  seen.  This  was  the 
larger  female,  and  she  was  working  by  herself 
with  her  tail  above  water,  having  apparently 
found  the  gravel  more  easily  worked  downward. 
Then  came  white  nose  towards  his  own  hole,  but 
quickly  departed  again,  doubtless  knowing  that 
the  big  bully  was  not  far  off.  The  latter,  indeed, 
soon  appeared,  darting  in  various  directions, 
chasing  away  the  small  fish,  but  not  pursuing 
them  far.  I  made  out  that  he  had  found  a  mate 


NETTING  235 

as  big  as  himself,  who  had  just  begun  to  work  at 
the  lower  end  of  the  ridge  in  the  deeper  water, 
and  I  could  trace  the  mud  which  she  had  stirred 
up  for  several  yards  down-stream.  Then  a  large 
male  fish,  which  appeared  like  a  yellowish  shadow, 
came  up  on  the  other  side  of  her,  but  disappeared 
again  pursued  by  the  first  male,  reappearing  from 
time  to  time  when  the  other  returned  to  his 
station  beside  the  female.  In  many  years  I 
never  had  so  good  an  opportunity  !  and  I  have 
endeavoured,  at  the  risk  of  being  tedious,  to  be 
accurate,  which  is  the  main  requirement.  Intend- 
ing to  get  a  good  haul  of  spawn  for  hatching,  I 
returned  at  dusk  with  a  lantern,  a  bait-tin,  two 
milk  cans,  a  shackle  net,  two  old  kipper  fishers, 
and  a  policeman.  The  occupant  of  the  ridge  was 
still  there,  but  as  soon  as  the  pole  touched  her 
tail  she  made  off.  Lower  down,  where  the  pair 
had  been  seen,  I  netted  the  male,  unfortunately 
without  his  mate.  He  was  a  grand  fish  about  a 
yard  long,  but,  being  of  no  use  by  himself,  was 
turned  out  of  the  net  into  the  water,  where  he  lay 
like  a  log,  making  no  attempt  to  escape,  as 
frequently  happens  when  the  fish  are  handled  at 
that  season.  The  old  kipper  fishers  were  emphatic 
in  the  expression  of  their  opinion  that  it  was  a 
shame  that  such  a  fish  should  be  allowed  to 
escape  ;  but  I  was  inexorable,  so  we  returned 
as  we  went,  re  injecta.  On  another  occasion  the 
luck  was  equally  bad,  for  a  man  who  had  released 
a  trout  from  the  bag  of  the  net  which  was  then  in 


236     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

use  forgot  to  tie  it,  so  that  the  fish  went  through, 
and  the  rising  of  the  water  put  an  end  to  the 
operations.  The  salmon  often  backs  out  of  the 
net ;  the  scurf  pushes  forward  and  tries  to  force 
its  way  through.  In  a  dark  night  they  can  be 
distinguished  from  each  other  by  putting  the  finger 
into  their  mouths,  when  the  strong,  sharp  teeth 
of  the  scurf  are  easily  felt  to  differ  from  the 
smaller  and  less  prominent  teeth  of  the  salmon. 
Reverting  to  the  spawning  :  the  female  is  much 
exhausted  by  the  violence  of  her  efforts  to  expel 
the  ova,  and  quits  the  stream  for  the  still  water, 
while  the  male  continues  to  hang  about  the  place, 
probably  because  the  milt  is  not  ready  all  at  once 
as  the  roe  of  the  female  is  ;  and  it  may  be  that  its 
gradual  exudation  may  reach  such  ova  as  may  be 
deposited  by  the  female  in  his  absence,  besides 
insuring  his  presence  in  case  other  females  should 
turn  up.  The  number  of  males  taken  with  nets 
by  the  Tees  water-bailiffs  for  hatching  purposes 
is  much  greater  than  that  of  females,  the  numbers 
for  this  season  (1886-87)  being  eighty-four  males 
and  twenty-eight  females,  and  they  had  as  many 
as  nine  males  without  a  female  in  one  draw  of  the 
shackle  net.  With  the  rod  the  numbers  are 
reversed,  that  of  the  females  greatly  exceeding 
that  of  the  males.  The  female  does  not  always 
eject  the  whole  of  her  spawn  ;  some  few  ova 
frequently  remain  in  her.  In  one  case  a  fish  taken 
with  the  rod  in  March  had  more  than  four 
hundred  left  in  her  ;  the  exact  number  was  not 


HATCHING  237 

ascertained,  as  the  counters  tired  when  they  got 
to  four  hundred.  It  would  seem  that  in  the 
rough  and  ready  process  of  spawning  above  de- 
scribed, some  of  the  ova  might  not  get  covered  at 
all,  while  some  would  get  too  deep.  Doubtless 
both  these  things  happen.  While  the  egg  is 
covered  up  among  the  gravel,  it  is  impossible  to 
trace  the  changes  which  take  place  before  it 
emerges  as  a  fish,  and  it  is  necessary  to  have  it  in 
a  position  where  such  changes  can  be  observed. 
My  own  contrivances  for  that  purpose  have  been 
of  a  very  primitive  order.  The  first  was  an 
ordinary  bait  can,  into  which  I  put  ten  eggs 
taken  when  I  was  assisting  Mr.  Samuel  Wilkinson 
and  Major  Flamstead,  active  members  of  the  Esk 
Angling  Association,  who  were  desirous  of  restoring 
the  true  salmon  to  the  Esk  at  Whitby,  and  whose 
efforts  to  that  end,  I  am  happy  to  say,  have  been 
successful.  Recovering  from  an  accident  which 
confined  me  to  bed  for  several  weeks  before  the 
hatching  was  due,  I  found  one  fish  alive,  and 
forthwith  transferred  it  to  a  pie  dish.  When  the 
time  came  that  it  had  to  be  fed,  lean  meat  and  fish 
of  all  kinds  were  minced  very  small  and  given  to 
it,  and  it  ate  them  indiscriminately.  When  it 
was  wanted  to  feed  the  water  was  stirred  with  a 
penknife,  and  the  current  immediately  set  it  on 
the  alert.  It  took  only  such  particles  of  food  as 
were  in  motion,  taking  no  notice  of  those  which 
settled  to  the  bottom.  It  became  so  tame  that, 
after  the  water  was  set  in  motion,  it  would  rise 


238     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

to  the  surface  of  the  water  where  the  food  was 
being  introduced  with   the  point   of  the  knife. 
After  some  time  it  took  those  particles  only  which 
were  sinking  below  itself,  indicating  that  it  was 
losing  its  sight.     This  proved  to  be  the  case,  for 
a  white  speck  was  forming  on  the  upper  part  of 
the  eye,  which,  growing  larger,  at  length  obscured 
the  whole  sight,  and  the  fish  died.     The  water 
was  only  changed  occasionally,  just  enough  to 
prevent  fouling  by  the  unconsumed  particles  of 
food.     In  all  succeeding  experiments  there  never 
was  another  so  apparently  tame,  because  when  the 
numbers  were  greater  they  alarmed  each  other. 
Of  those  which  came  to  life  in  a  pie  dish,  two 
survivors  throve  fairly  well  for  a  time,  the  water 
being  changed  two  or  three  times  a  week.     This 
water  was  brought  from  the  river,  and  the  last 
canful    contained    two    young    minnows,    which 
consisted  chiefly  of  eyes  and  shadows,  so  trans- 
parent were  they.     No  sooner  did  the  little  salmon 
perceive  them  than  they  followed  them  about, 
and  examined  them  attentively.     They  did  not 
attack  them  that  day,  but  next  morning  both  the 
minnows  were  gone  ;  one  of  the  salmon  was  dead, 
and  the  other  so  shaky  that  I  turned  it  out  into 
the    river.     This    fish    had    only    one    eye.     To 
return  to  the  egg,  which  at  first  is  perfectly  round, 
though  it  gradually  becomes  pear-shaped,   and 
which  is  so  transparent  that  what  takes  place  in 
the  interior  can  easily  be  seen,  at  least  in  the  first 
stages.     Little  drops  that  look  like  oil  separate 


BIOLOGY  239 

and  rise  to  the  top,  where  they  form  a  sort  of 
nucleus,  about  the  centre  of  which  vital  action 
originates.  The  drops  vary  in  size,  in  number, 
and  in  intensity  of  colour,  and  the  darker  they  are 
the  stronger  the  fish  that  comes  out,  When  the 
egg  comes  to  rest  this  action  begins  almost  im- 
mediately, and  any  material  disturbance  is  fatal 
after  they  have  remained  motionless  for  about 
twenty-four  hours,  the  vital  forces  which  tend  in 
an  upward  direction  being  apparently  unable  to 
sustain  the  shock  of  a  sudden  reversal,  neither 
can  they  endure  a  sudden  violent  change  of  tem- 
perature. They  cannot,  indeed,  be  moved  with 
safety  until  the  fluid  contents  of  the  outer  mem- 
brane become  sufficiently  consolidated,  and  that 
is  not  till  the  eyes  are  visible.  This  is  in  about 
fifty-eight  days ;  but  no  precise  date  can  be 
given,  as  there  is  sometimes  a  difference  of  a 
week  in  the  hatching  of  eggs  taken  from  the  same 
parent  at  the  same  time,  and  undergoing  precisely 
the  same  treatment.  The  outer  membrane,  at 
first  transparent,  becomes  opaque  and  apparently 
thicker,  but  not  so  as  to  hinder  the  growth  of  the 
young  fish  from  being  seen,  somewhat  indistinctly 
it  is  true,  but  still  it  can  be  discerned  curled  up  in 
its  narrow  cell.  In  about  eighty  days  the  mem- 
brane bursts  and  the  young  fish  emerges,  the  back 
generally  being  the  first  part  to  appear.  Some- 
times it  requires  a  little  assistance  to  free  itself 
from  its  covering,  which  then  resembles  a  piece  of 
white  skin.  Immense  eyes,  a  transparent  body 


24o     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

with  a  large  yellow  bag  beneath  it,  and  a  gaping 
mouth  give  it  a  helpless  look.  After  a  short  rest 
it  begins  to  try  its  locomotive  powers,  and  darts 
about  at  intervals  like  a  small  balloon,  sometimes 
head  first,  sometimes  tail  first,  and  apparently 
without  any  definite  object ;  but  when  more 
accustomed  to  the  exercise  of  its  new  powers  it 
uses  them  instinctively  for  the  purpose  of  hiding 
itself,  and  the  greatest  numbers  are  to  be  found 
crowded  together  in  the  darkest  corners  of  the 
breeding-place.  While  they  are  transparent  they 
are  particularly  well  adapted  to  be  viewed  under 
the  microscope  ;  the  intermittent  current  of  the 
arterial  blood  running  from  head  to  tail,  and  the 
continuous  flow  of  the  venous  blood  in  the  opposite 
direction  being  very  interesting.  In  one  that  was 
resting  on  the  bottom  of  a  dish  (the  coloured 
figures  on  which  were  visible  through  its  body), 
close  to  the  opening  of  the  imperfect  gill  cover 
there  was  a  seeming  ciliary  motion  of  the  gills, 
which  a  magnifying  glass  showed  to  be  the 
pectoral  fins  in  extremely  rapid  motion  ;  and  the 
question  suggested  itself,  was  this  an  effort  of 
Nature  to  cause  a  flow  of  water  through  the  gills 
which  did  not  exist  in  the  dish,  but  which  would 
always  be  present  in  the  running  stream  ?  There 
was  no  response  from  the  pie  dish,  and  the 
question  remains  unanswered.  The  whole  process 
is  extremely  interesting  from  the  time  when  the 
little  oil  drops  begin  to  form  the  nucleus  wherein 
starts  the  first  throb  that  indicates  the  site  of  the 


REARING  241 

future  heart,  and  whence  the  first  streak  of  red 
blood  begins  to  permeate  the  yolk,  to  the  time — 
one  hundred  and  thirteen  days — when  the  yolk  is 
entirely  absorbed  into  the  body  and  the  perfect 
fish  is  there.  Three  days  after  the  latter  stage 
young  fish  fed  with  almost  all  kinds  of  fish,  flesh, 
and  fowl,  free  from  fat,  seemed  to  take  them  all 
equally  well,  and  when  wanted  to  feed  they 
invariably  responded  to  a  current  made  by  stirring 
the  water.  When  moved  into  a  tub  with  stones 
in  it  they  chose  their  stations  after  the  manner  of 
their  elders,  and  the  big  ones  took  precedence  in 
helping  themselves  to  the  food.  Here  they 
seemed  to  keep  their  condition  pretty  well,  but 
could  not  be  kept  after  they  had  been  discovered 
by  the  cats,  when  they  had  to  be  turned  out  into 
the  river.  When  they  cease  to  be  transparent 
dark  marks  like  saddles  may  be  seen  on  their 
backs,  which  indicate  the  position  of  the  so-called 
brands  or  finger  marks.  It  is  not  easy  to  keep 
them  in  confinement  after  they  get  to  be  about  two 
inches  long,  as  even  then  they  show  a  quarrelsome 
disposition,  attacking  each  other  from  behind 
and  trying  to  have  a  nip  at  the  tail  fin.  Though 
they  may  have  been  reared  in  a  dish  they  seem 
to  be  by  no  means'  at  a  loss  how  to  act  in  the 
river,  for  they  immediately  betake  themselves 
to  cover  under  the  stones  as  if  they  were  quite 
familiar  with  their  new  habitation,  and  comport 
themselves  exactly  as  their  congeners  who  have 
begun  life  in  the  usual  manner.  These  latter 

Q 


242     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

may  be  seen  in  the  early  summer  darting  about 
from  stone  to  stone  when  disturbed,  quite  near 
the  edge  of  the  shallow  water,  as  if  aware  that 
there  they  were  safe  from  their  enemies  ;  but 
their  growth  is  wonderfully  rapid,  and  by  the 
middle  of  June  they  may  be  found  five  or  six  inches 
long  basking  in  the  sun  in  the  shallowest  streams, 
and  feeding  voraciously  during  the  long  summer 
day.  In  the  autumn  they  may  weigh  as  much  as 
four  and  a  quarter  ounces,  but  such  a  weight  is  not 
common.  During  the  winter  progress  does  not 
seem  to  be  so  rapid,  but  here  we  are  met  by  the 
constantly  recurring  difficulty,  viz.  the  impossi- 
bility of  keeping  the  same  individual  under 
continuous  inspection  in  the  natural  state  of  life. 
An  unsuccessful  spawn-catching  expedition  on 
the  i6th  December  1876  resulted  in  the  capture 
of  three  brandlings,  the  largest  of  which  was 
about  seven  inches  long,  and  the  smallest  three 
and  a  half  inches  and  the  other  five  and  a  half. 
They  were  put  into  a  pump  trough  half  full  of 
water,  with  some  stones  and  bricks  for  shelter, 
and  a  worm  or  two  given  to  them  occasionally. 
They  lived  through  the  greater  part  of  the  winter, 
and  the  little  one  saved  itself  under  the  stones  ; 
but  the  middle-sized  one  suffered  from  the  attacks 
of  the  big  one,  which  contrived  to  nibble  away 
half  of  its  tail  fin  before  meeting  his  own  end, 
which  came  to  pass  through  the  trough  becoming 
too  full  of  water.  He  was  found  on  the  pavement, 
and  no  doubt  he  went  overboard  in  making  one 


SMOLTS  243 

of  his  rushes  at  the  other.     The  death  of  that 
other,  probably  from  want  of  proper  food,  left 
the  small  survivor  at  peace.     He  did  not  grow 
but  was  healthy  and  lively,  and  came  out  from  his 
hold  nearly  every  day  to  take  his  worm  ;   but  at 
length  a  day  came  when  he  did  not  respond,  the 
next  day  it  was  the  same,  and  on  the  stones  being 
lifted  he  was  found  crushed  to  death,  the  victim 
of  idle  curiosity  on  the  part  of  some  stupid  person 
whose    clumsy    manipulation    caused    the    fatal 
result.     The  disappointment  was  grievous,   and 
the  more  so  because  the  spots  and  brand  marks 
were  nearly  faded  away,  and  in  a  few  more  days 
there  would  have  been  a  perfect  miniature  salmon  ; 
now  there  are  only  the  dried  remains.     In  April 
those  smelts  which  are  prepared  to  migrate  to 
the  sea  begin  to  drop  down-stream  into  the  tide- 
way, and  this  movement  continues  till  '  the  first 
flood  in  May  takes  all  the  smelts  away/  leaving 
those   which  still   answer  to  the  description  of 
'  brandling,'  and  which  belong  to  the  succeeding 
generation,   though  a  chance  '  blue  back '  may 
sometimes  be  found  late  into  June.     There  are 
also  a  few  brandlings  left  whose  size  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  they  ought  to  have  passed  into 
the  smelt  stage,   being  quite  as  large  as  those 
which  have  gone  away  to  sea.     These  are  almost 
without   exception   male   fish.     One   remarkable 
exception,  however,  has  occurred  in  the  shape  of  a 
female  brandling  about  eight  inches  long,  which 
did  not  differ  in  outward  appearance  from  a  male, 


244     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

but  which  was  full  of  roe  of  a  dull  yellow  colour, 
the  roe  itself  being  composed  of  small  ova,  like 
grains  of  sand,  interspersed  with  nearly  full-sized 
ova,  while  the  cavity  nearest  to  the  vent  was 
crammed  full  of  the  burst  skins  of  the  larger  ova, 
any  outlet  from  the  ovary  not  being  perceptible. 
This  was  the  only  occasion  when  I  found  ova  in 
the  female  brandling  ;  the  reproductive  organs  of 
the  male  fish  were,  at  the  same  time,  quite  rudi- 
mentary, though  at  spawning  time  in  autumn 
they  would  be  in  full  activity.  I7th  April  1843, 
caught  a  fresh-run  fish,  weight  12  Ibs.  12  oz., 
only  contents  of  the  stomach  three  March  brown 
creepers.  In  the  same  year  a  fish  taken  6th 
November,  weighing  5  Ibs.  10  oz.,  contained  i  Ib. 
of  roe  ;  412  eggs  to  the  ounce,  6592.  13 th  Novem- 
ber, fish  10  Ibs.  4  oz.,  roe  2  Ibs.  2  oz.  ;  417  to  the 
ounce,  14,178.  i4th  November,  fish  14  Ibs.  5  oz., 
roe  3  Ibs.  ;  313  eggs  to  the  ounce,  15,024.  Then 
finding  that  only  hen  fish  took  I  gave  up  for  the 
season. 

The  young  of  the  common  trout  go  through 
their  earliest  stages,  which  are  just  like  those 
which  the  young  salmon  go  through  ;  but  their 
distinctive  marks  soon  begin  to  show,  and  differ- 
ences in  shape  and  colour  become  more  and  more 
apparent  as  they  advance  in  age.  The  young 
salmon  has  some  red  spots  along  the  lateral  line, 
and  from  one  to  three  dark  spots  on  the  gill  covers  ; 
the  brands  are  mostly  in  pairs,  equal  above  and 
below  the  lateral  line,  equal  in  number  on  each 


YOUNG  SEA-  AND  BULL-TROUT         245 

side,  and  usually  in  pairs  of  eleven,  nine,  and  seven. 
The  least  numbers  that  I  have  seen  were  seven  on 
one  side  and  six  on  the  other  ;  the  greatest  thirteen 
and  fifteen  on  two  of  the  Lune  fish  hatched  at 
Stockton  for  the  Board.  The  brands  of  the  bull- 
trout are  disposed  with  less  regularity ;  the  gill 
cover  and  the  back  fin  are  spotted  with  many 
dark  spots.  The  pectoral  fins  of  the  bull-trout 
are  of  a  bright  orange  colour,  the  other  fins  white, 
with  a  narrow  black  fringe  to  the  tail  fin,  while  the 
young  trout  of  the  same  size  have  all  the  fins  more 
or  less  yellow.  The  dark  spots  on  the  back  of  the 
young  salmon  are  much  fewer  than  those  on  the 
backs  of  the  trout  and  bull-trout,  and  are  seldom 
found  below  the  lateral  line,  while  those  of  the 
two  last  are  found  both  above  and  below  that 
line.  On  the  common  trout  brown  and  red  spots 
are  intermixed,  the  brand  marks  not  extending 
much  above  and  below  the  lateral  line,  and  soon 
disappearing  entirely.  The  scales  of  the  salmon 
smelts  are  easily  rubbed  off,  the  brand  marks  fade 
away  gradually,  and  the  spots  decrease  ;  the  back 
of  the  young  salmon  taking  a  steel  blue  shade, 
and  its  fins  a  green  colour,  sometimes  running 
whitish  in  the  lower  fins. 

In  order  to  test  their  rate  of  growth,  I  had 
about  three  hundred  smelts  marked  in  1867  by 
cutting  off  the  button  fin,  which  does  not  grow 
again.  I  caught  fish  so  marked  repeatedly  before 
they  went  to  sea,  from  whence  the  greater  number 
never  returned,  at  least  not  to  my  knowledge  ; 

Q2 


246     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

but  on  the  ist  October  in  that  year  a  marked 
fish  x  was  taken  weighing  4|-  Ibs.  Taking  the 
smelt  to  be  only  i  oz.  when  it  leaves  the  river 
in  May,  that  shows  an  increase  in  weight  of 
four  hundred  times  in  sixteen  months  after 
hatching. 

With  the  male  salmon  at  the  time  of  spawning, 
his  combined  black,  brown,  olive,  yellow,  red,  and 
gold  sometimes  form  a  gorgeous  pattern  which 
reminds  one  of  an  India  shawl.  These  colours  soon 
fade  when  spawning  is  over.  I  have  seen  salmon 
literally  black  all  over,  but  I  never  saw  either  the 
scurf  or  the  bull-trout  black,  or  arrayed  in  the 
gorgeous  colours  above  mentioned  ;  2  only  a  light 
yellow  tinge  on  the  scurf,  and  more  and  larger  spots 
on  the  bull-trout.  The  dark  tinge  caused  by  peat 
water  is  evanescent  and  soon  disappears,  either 
on  the  clearing  of  the  water  or  the  death  of  the  fish  ; 
but  while  it  lasts  it  is  sometimes  impossible  to 
distinguish  the  bull-trout  from  the  common  trout 
by  the  colour.  The  best  indication  is  the  differ- 
ence between  the  heads,  and  especially  the  teeth. 
A  2  Ib.  bull-trout  being  young,  his  teeth  are  small 
in  proportion  to  his  size  ;  but  the  2  Ib.  trout  will 
have  such  a  gang  of  teeth  as  may  be  expected  to 
belong  to  a  veteran  tyrant  of  the  water — sharp, 
crooked,  and  larger  ;  and  after  being  out  of  the 

1  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  was  not  a  fish  which  had  accidentally 
lost  the  button  fin. 

*  I  have  often  seen  in  other  rivers  female  bull-trout  with  belly  and 
sides  as  black  as  ink  ;  at  the  same  time  the  males  looked  like  glorious 
golden  yellow  trout.— A.  H.  C. 


OTTERS  247 

water  for  twenty-four  hours  the  bull-trout  will 
have  become  much  the  brighter  of  the  two.  In 
most  fish,  indeed,  the  colour  induced  by  contact 
with  coloured  substances  gives  place  soon  after 
death  to  what  may  be  called  the  natural  hue.  I 
have  taken  a  salmon  of  a  dull  lead  colour,  and 
two  others  of  a  delicate  rose  colour,  which  faded 
soon  after  they  became  dry,  and  which  I  thought 
might  possibly  have  been  caused  by  contact  with 
the  red  sandstone.  The  sea-trout  only  take  on  a 
yellowish  tinge  at  spawning  time,  but  they  remain 
longer  in  the  river,  and  look  like  a  flash  of  silver 
when  they  spring  out  of  the  water  in  the  light  of  an 
April  sun.  I  have  sometimes  caught  trout  in  the 
Tees  which  had  their  sides  covered  with  a  pink 
tinge  like  that  on  the  tip  of  the  button  fin,  and 
occasionally  brandlings  whose  sides  were  as  yellow 
as  a  buttercup.  In  fact,  shades  of  colour,  changing 
with  changing  conditions,  are  almost  endless. 

Leaving  out  of  account  man — the  universal 
enemy — the  adult  salmon  have  few  enemies  to 
contend  with  in  the  Tees.  The  seal  has  dis- 
appeared from  Seat  on  Snook.  The  otter  can  only 
supply  a  hunt  once  or  twice  in  a  season.  Far 
different  was  it  when  the  old  otters  and  their 
young  might  be  heard  and  seen  on  a  fine  summer's 
night,  whistling  and  playing  about  in  the  Brig 
pool,  and  when  the  sound  of  the  cow's  horn  on 
Croft  Bridge  would  bring  together  a  jovial  crew 
to  join  the  hunt  with  their  dogs  and  otter  spears, 
seldom  without  a  find.  All  the  same,  the  salmon 


248     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

were  not  much  better  for  the  destruction  of 
their  four-footed  enemies  by  the  otter  hunters, 
for  the  same  men  were  expert  with  the  leister  and 
the  trows,  and  rarely  allowed  a  fish  to  escape  in 
the  summer,  besides  spearing  them  on  the  streams 
at  spawning  time.  The  otter  is  said  to  be  very 
destructive  to  salmon  by  reason  of  a  habit  which 
it  has  of  biting  a  piece  out  of  the  shoulder,  and 
leaving  the  rest  of  the  fish.  If  that  be  so,  what 
becomes  of  it  ?  I  have  for  many  years  carefully 
looked  out  for  signs  of  otter :  I  have  frequently 
seen  their  seal  where  the  sand  would  take  a  print ; 
I  have  seen  the  backbone  of  a  salmon  stripped  of 
flesh  ;  I  have  seen  the  lower  half  of  a  large  trout 
left  on  a  rock  in  midstream  ;  I  have  seen  many 
skeletons  of  small  fish  left  where  the  fish  had  been 
eaten  ;  I  have  seen  ova  among  the  otter's  spraint, 
which  had  passed  through  its  body  undigested  ; 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  otter  confines  itself 
to  taking  a  small  piece  out  of  the  shoulder  of  a 
salmon.  Such  unqualified  statements  only  mis- 
lead. 

The  young  fish  have  more  numerous  enemies. 
In  addition  to  the  danger  of  being  devoured 
by  larger  fish  of  their  own  or  of  other  kinds, 
which  is  common  to  all  fishes,  they  are  liable 
to  suffer  from  the  depredations  of  the  heron,  the 
kingfisher,  the  water  ouzel,  and,  more  rarely, 
the  seagull.  The  destructive  power  of  the  heron 
is  well  known ;  fortunately  none  of  the  birds 
named  are  numerous  in  the  Tees.  There  were  a 


BIG  FISH— A  38  LBS.  SEA-TROUT         249 

good  many  kingfishers  in  the  Tees,  but  a  great 
many  perished  in  a  hard  winter  between  twenty 
and  thirty  years  ago,  and  they  have  been  scarce 
since  then.  The  water  ouzel  chiefly  frequents 
the  upper  waters  ;  the  gull  seldom  conies  far 
inland — and  probably  the  damage  which  they  all 
do  is  not  very  material.  The  brandling  (parr) 
forms  the  most  attractive  bait  that  I  know  of  for 
pike,  perch,  and  chub.  Two  of  the  latter  have 
been  seen  to  chase  one  as  a  brace  of  greyhounds 
course  a  hare.  After  many  turns  it  was  driven 
ashore  on  a  steep  gravel  bed,  from  whence  it  fell 
back  and  was  devoured  by  its  nearest  pursuer. 
I  don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  class  spiders 
among  the  enemies ;  but  one  morning  I  found 
in  my  hatching  dish  a  large  spider,  and  a  very 
handsome  one  he  was,  striped  with  longitudinal 
bars  of  light  and  dark  grey  disposed  alternately. 
He  was  covered  with  long  hairs  ;  and,  on  being 
disturbed,  sank  in  the  water,  taking  with  him 
bubbles  of  air  adhering  to  his  body  just  as  I  have 
seen  the  water  ouzel  do.  The  dish  was  standing 
on  a  table  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Where  he 
came  from,  and  how  he  got  there,  I  know  not ; 
but  appearances  were  against  him,  and  I  did  not 
like  to  trust  my  newborn  infants  in  his  company, 
so  I  made  him  scarce. 

There  are  not  many  very  large  fish  taken  in  the 
Tees,  and  probably  there  never  will  be.  In  a 
river  so  small  and  so  hard  fished,  it  cannot  be 
expected  that  more  than  a  chance  fish  now  and 


250     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

then  should  be  allowed  to  live  long  enough  to  grow 
very  large.  James  Teasdale's  sea-trout,  which 
weighed  38  Ibs.  when  it  was  caught,  is  by  far  the 
largest  fish  of  which  I  have  heard.  I  saw  it  before 
it  was  stuffed.  It  was  a  male,  and  the  milt  was 
whole  though  it  was  taken  in  April.  Several 
years  ago,  on  the  motion  of  Canon  Tristram,  the 
Tees  Fishery  Board  resolved  to  try  the  introduc- 
tion of  fish  from  the  West  Coast,  where  fish  much 
larger  than  the  Tees  fish  were  said  to  be  far  from 
uncommon.  It  was  left  to  Canon  Tristram  and 
myself  to  carry  out  the  resolution.  Canon  Tris- 
tram was  unable  to  go,  but  I  went  to  Kirkby 
Lonsdale  twice,  and  procured  another  consign- 
ment of  ova  to  be  sent.  I  did  not  see  any  fish 
larger  than  I  had  seen  in  the  Tees,  and  I  have  not 
hitherto  seen  any  increase  in  size  which  can  be 
traced  to  these  Lune  fish,  or  to  the  thousand 
Rhine  salmon  which  Mr.  Buckland  gave  to  the 
Tees  Board.  It  is  too  soon  to  look  for  the  effect 
of  the  Tay  fish  which  were  turned  into  the  river 
last  year  ;  but,  reasoning  from  analogy,  it  may 
be  expected  that  the  introduction  of  fresh  blood 
will  lead  to  improvement. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  my  long  experience 
would  enable  me  to  say  something  worth  hearing 
about  fishing  matters  ;  but,  unless  the  above- 
written  notes  may  be  so  considered,  I  hardly  think 
that  such  is  the  case.  In  these  days  of  floss  silk 
lines,  drawn  gut,  and  dry  fly,  I  can't  pretend  to 
teach.  The  scientific  modern  angler  would  rate 


ANCIENT  TACKLE  251 

me  little  higher  than  an  old  fossil ;  being,  as  I  am, 
one  of  the  primaeval  sort  whose  '  fettlements ' 
were  principally  composed  of  a  tangle  of  coloured 
silks,  bits  of  cobbler's  wax,  hooks,  gut,  feathers, 
etc.,  very  much  mixed :  who  sat  down  on  the  bank 
and  imitated,  as  well  as  his  skill,  or  want  of  skill, 
would  allow,  the  fly  that  was  '  on/  or  perhaps 
mended  his  rod  top  with  his  knife  and  a  bit  of 
waxed  thread.  In  fact,  a  great  part  of  the  amuse- 
ment consisted  in  the  making  and  mending  of  his 
own  '  grai thing.'  Except  March  brown,  green 
drake,  and  Mayfly,  his  flies  were  mostly  known  to 
him  by  the  names  of  the  materials  of  which  they 
were  made,  as  woodcock  and  orange,  snipe  and 
yellow,  swift  and  purple,  etc.,  or  as  light  and  dark 
blue,  the  colours  indicating  what  silk  was  to  be 
used.  When  I  began  to  fish  the  use  of  the  running 
reel  was  far  from  being  universal.1  To  the  top  of 
a  two-jointed  rod  a  hair  loop  was  fixed,  to  which 
a  corresponding  loop  on  the  line  was  attached. 
The  horsehair  line,  about  the  same  length  as  the 
rod,  tapered  to  three  hairs,  and  ended  in  a  loop 
to  which  the  '  stintin  '  or  cast  of  flies,  numbering 
from  one  to  four,  was  appended,  the  drop  flies 
being  called  '  jacks  '  and  the  line  itself  a  '  taime.' 
When  not  in  use  the  line  was  wound  round  the 


1  He  caught  his  first  salmon  in  1820,  and  in  his  later  years  used  to 
use  light  spliced  rods  up  to  twenty-two  feet  in  length.  I  remember 
his  telling  me  that  when  fishing  with  his  friend,  John  Errington,  on 
the  North  Tyne,  he  had  seen  the  village  schoolmaster  at  Warden 
take  a  number  of  fine  salmon  with  such  a  rod  as  he  has  described 
with  a  hair  line  and  no  reel  at  all,  and  without  losing  a  fish. — A.H.C. 


252     TALES  OF  A  GREAT-GRANDFATHER 

hand,  and  fastened  to  the  rod  at  a  convenient 
height  above  the  butt-end  by  means  of  a  piece  of 
stick  put  through  the  wound-up  line,  then  behind 
the  rod  and  through  the  line  again. 

In  the  long-run  the  man  who  believes  in  his  fly 
and  sticks  to  it  is  more  likely  to  do  well  than  one 
who  is  perpetually  changing.  It  appears,  too, 
that  the  capture  of  fish  is  not  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  enjoyment  of  angling  as  a  pastime.  I 
have  seen  men  fishing  away  very  contentedly  in 
water  so  clear  that  they  might  have  seen  that  there 
was  not  a  fish  within  yards  of  them.  To  beginners, 
I  say  fish  with  your  heads,  don't  be  in  a  hurry, 
keep  up  your  rod  top,  and  never  have  any  slack 
line  in  the  water. 

J.  C.  C. 


XXV 

NATURAL   HISTORY  AND  OTHER   POINTS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — Almost  every  point  in  the  life- 
history  of  the  salmon  has  been  the  subject  of 
bitter  controversy.  The  water  keeps  its  secrets 
well.  From  the  earliest  times  down  to  a  year  or 
two  ago  no  man  knew  even  where  the  common  eel 
spawned  or  whence  the  swarms  of  elvers  appeared 
in  our  rivers.  The  wildest  theories  were  believed. 
Eels  were  supposed  to  be  generated  spontaneously 
out  of  mud  or  slime  and  even  to  grow  out  of  horse 
hairs  that  fell  into  ponds  and  ditches.  Now  at 
last  it  has  been  found  that  every  eel  in  the  re- 
motest inland  pond,  and  not  only  in  our  own 
country  but  in  France,  Holland,  and  even  Russia, 
has  made  his  way  there  from  breeding-places  in 
the  depths  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  beyond  the 
five  hundred  fathom  line,  and  imagination  proves 
almost  less  strange  than  fact. 

So  of  salmon.  Not  until  the  experiments  of 
John  Shaw  of  Drumlanrig,  in  artificially  hatching 
and  rearing  the  ova  of  salmon,  were  made  known 
about  1840  was  it  established  with  certainty  that 
parr  and  smolts  were  both  the  young  of  the 
salmon.  Many  believed  parr  to  be  a  different 
fish,  though  by  rubbing  off  the  silvery  scales  of 


253 


254   NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  OTHER  POINTS 

the  smolt  the  '  brandling '  or  parr  marks,  and  the 
red  spots  too,  can  plainly  be  seen  beneath  them. 

So  it  was  also  as  to  the  facts  of  the  migration 
and  the  length  of  life  of  the  salmon,  and  as  to  the 
length  and  frequency  of  his  visits  to  fresh  water. 
Systematic  markings   of   fish,   both    by  private 
persons  and  lately  by  the  Board  of  Agriculture 
and  Fisheries,  have  at  last  begun  to  accumulate 
evidence  of  a  fairly  definite  nature  as  to  the  main 
facts  of  the  salmon's  life-history.     We  know,  for 
instance,  that  he  does  often  find  his  way  to  strange 
rivers,  at  times  even  to  rivers  far  away  from  that 
in  which  he  was  born  ;  that  the  smolt,  after  spend- 
ing one  to  one  and  a  half  or  possibly  two  years  in 
the  sea,  may  return  to  the  river  for  the  first  time 
either  as  the  grilse  of  one  year  or  as  the  small 
spring  fish  of  the  next.     We  have  even  got  on  his 
scales   some   rough   chart   of   the   salmon's   life, 
thanks  to  the  discovery — by  Mr.  H.  W.  Johnston 
— that   the  scale  under  the  microscope  reveals 
concentric  lines  of  growth  varying  in  closeness 
for  summer  and  for  winter  feeding,  and  showing 
plainly   the  fraying   caused   after   spawning   by 
the  great  shrinking  in  bulk  undergone  by  the 
fish  as  a  kelt.     But  for  the  details  of  all  these 
things  you  must  read  some  of  the  latest  books 
dealing   with   the   life-history   of   the   fish.      At 
the  present  moment  Mr.  Calderwood's  book  1  is 

1  Life  of  the  Salmon  (Arnold,  1907).  The  'rings'  on  the  scales 
are  said  by  a  recent  investigator,  Malloch,  to  run  about  sixteen  to 
each  year. 


DO  SALMON  FEED?  255 

the  best  that  I  know.  But  even  he  assures  us 
that  the  eggs  of  the  salmon  are  laid  in  a  trough 
and  then  covered  up  by  the  fish,  a  statement 
that,  I  think,  is  demonstrably  erroneous,  yet 
one  that  still  is  copied  from  one  book  into 
another  without  any  proper  examination  into  its 
accuracy. 

Again,  '  Do  salmon  feed  in  fresh  water  ? ' 
What  angry  quarrels  and  what  oceans  of  con- 
troversial ink  that  simple  question  has  been 
responsible  for  !  I  am  not  going  to  argue  it  over 
again.  Blue-books  have  proved — as  we  all 
thought — by  scientific  evidence  that  the  stomachs 
of  salmon  during  their  stay  in  fresh  water  undergo 
some  change  whereby  they  are  not  in  a  condition 
to  digest  food.  After  a  decent  interval  other 
'  scientific  gents. '  have  then  proved  equally  clearly 
that  the  first  scientific  gents,  were  all  wrong,  and 
have  proved  that  the  condition  seen  in  the  earlier 
examinations  was  due  to  the  very  fact  that  the 
stomach  of  the  salmon  had  the  power  of  digestion 
and  had  digested  itself  after  its  owner's  death. 
In  a  copy  of  the  Field  that  is  before  me  now,  a 
gentleman  writes  from  Aboyne  on  the  Dee  to  say 
that  he  has  just  taken  out  of  the  mouth  of  a  clean 
spring  fish  of  8  Ibs.,  killed  on  a  flight  of  bait  hooks, 
a  half-digested  salmon  parr,  three  and  a  half 
inches  in  length.  I  myself  have  found  the 
mushy  head  of  a  small  trout  stuck  on  a  triangle 
after  landing  an  autumn  salmon  on  the  minnow, 
and  have  caught  a  salmon  on  a  bunch  of  worms 


256   NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  OTHER  POINTS 

and  found  the  hook  embedded  in  the  actual 
stomach  of  the  fish.1  Your  great-grandfather,  on 
the  I7th  April  1843,  found  three  March  brown 
creepers  in  the  stomach  of  a  spring  salmon. 
And  many  other  anglers  have  at  times  found  food 
in  salmon  in  fresh  water.  But  still,  in  almost 
ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  no  food  is  found 
inside  salmon  that  have  been  examined.  Why  ? 
Well,  they  can  eject  it  if  they  want  to  do  so. 
My  fish  caught  on  the  worm  had  ejected  the  worms 
and  left  the  bare  hook  in  his  belly.  But  I  do  not 
think  that  is  the  whole  explanation  by  any  means. 
The  fish  are  rolling  fat,  and  food  is  not  essential  to 
them.  I  think  that  is  proved,  and  it  is  also  proved 
that  they  eat  very  little.  But  I  think  it  clear 
that  they  do  eat. 

In  1894  and  1895  two  gentlemen,  Messrs.  Gray 
and  Tosh,  examined  1694  salmon  from  the  lower 
reaches  of  the  Tweed,  of  which  1442  were 
caught  in  the  Berwick  nets.  The  examination  of 
the  stomachs  of  so  large  a  number  of  salmon,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  was  most  instructive, 
and  the  results  were  as  follows : — 

Of  the  fish  caught  in  the  months  of  March, 
April,  May,  and  June,  43%,  37%,  16%,  and  13% 
respectively  were  found  to  have  food  in  their 
stomachs.  In  the  months  of  July,  August,  and 
September  the  proportion  of  fish,  in  the  stomachs 
of  which  any  food  was  found,  fell  to  17%,  3*8%, 
and  2%  respectively.  These  records  show  pretty 

1  See  anfe,  page  107. 


SEA-LICE  257 

clearly  that  in  the  early  months  of  the  year  and 
in  cold  water  salmon  do  commonly  contain  some 
food,  and  that  they  eat  less  and  less  as  the  summer 
comes  on,  until  they  reach  the  minimum  in  July, 
after  which  month  there  is  again  a  trifling  increase. 
These  fish,  too,  were  caught  at  or  near  the  mouth 
of  the  river,  and  in  the  sea  admittedly  salmon  do 
eat — must  eat — yet  the  proportion  having  any 
food  contained  in  the  stomach  diminishes  almost 
to  vanishing  point  by  midsummer.  The  food 
found  in  the  bellies  of  these  fish  was  chiefly 
herrings,  with  occasional  sand-eels,  whiting,  and 
haddock,  and  there  was  also  found  in  them 

i  caterpillar, 

4  feathers, 

i  beech  leaf, 

and  moss,  blades  of  grass,  and  sedge. 

Another  point  of  controversy  is  the  period 
during  which  sea-lice  can  remain  on  a  salmon  in 
fresh  water.1  In  some  experiments  made  by  the 
Fishery  Board  at  Aberdeen  with  living  salmon 
placed  in  a  sea-tank  which  was  then  gradually 
filled  with  fresh  water,  it  was  found  that  the  lice 
no  longer  adhered  to  the  salmon  after  four  or 
five  days  in  the  fresh  water.  But  I  am  convinced 
that  most  people  are  unaware  that  there  is  a 
common  fresh-water  parasite  much  like  the  sea- 
louse,  which  adheres  to  salmon  in  summer  and 
autumn  in  the  same  way  as  the  sea-louse  does, 
and  of  course  gives  no  indication  as  to  the  length 

R 


258    NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  OTHER  POINTS 

of  time  that  the  salmon  has  been  out  of  the  sea. 
Some  years  ago,  noticing  that  these  parasites — 
commonly  regarded  by  anglers  as  sea-lice — were 
to  be  found  in  August  upon  trout  as  well  as  upon 
salmon,  I  collected  a  number  of  them,  and  by  the 
courtesy  of  Mr.  W.  E.  Archer,  of  the  Board  of 
Trade  and  Fisheries,  lice  taken  from  yellow  trout, 
from  bull-trout,  and  from  salmon  were  submitted 
for  examination  to  the  official  expert,  who  reported 
that  they  were  all  examples  of  the  same  species 
of  parasite,  namely,  Argulus  foliaceus,  which  is  a 
fresh-water  parasite,  and  only  rarely  or  accident- 
ally found  on  fish  in  the  sea.  Now  this  fraudulent 
little  beast  is  almost  the  same  size  as  a  sea-louse, 
but  looks  rather  like  a  translucent  greenish  wood- 
louse  flattening  itself  against  the  body  of  the 
salmon,  to  which  it  sticks  not  only  by  its  shape, 
but  by  means  of  a  set  of  concealed  feet  armed 
with  relatively  large,  flat  suckers.  The  sea-louse 
has  a  waist  and  a  sort  of  tail — is  shaped  roughly 
like  the  figure  8  with  a  tail. 

When,  therefore,  you  are  tempted  to  assert 
that  some  salmon  caught  forty  or  fifty  miles  above 
the  tideway  is  proved,  by  the  presence  of  sea- 
lice,  to  have  been  only  a  day  or  two  ago  in  the 
sea,  it  would  be  as  well  to  make  sure  that  you 
are  not  founding  that  belief — as  I  am  perfectly 
certain  that  many  people  do — upon  the  pre- 
sence of  Argulus  foliaceus,  which  you  mistake 
for  Monoculus  piscinus.  Pretty  names,  aren't 
they! 


CLEAN  OR  KELT  259 

I  have  already  told  you  the  way  to  tell,  by  its 
incessant  kicking  when  lifted  out  of  the  water, 
a  parr  or  a  smolt  from  a  small  trout.  It  is  also 
a  help  to  the  beginner,  anxious  to  do  right,  to 
remember  that  parr  or  smolts,  moreover,  are  very 
seldom  more  than  seven  inches  long.  I  will  try 
now  to  give  you  some  idea  of  how  to  tell  a  clean 
spring  fish  from  a  really  well-mended  kelt.  It  is 
a  question  that  has  caused  agonies  of  doubt  to 
the  inexperienced  fisher,  or  to  the  fisher  who  has 
had  but  little  spring  fishing,  because  if  he  brings 
home  the  wrong  fish,  besides  breaking  the  law — 
which  probably  won't  trouble  him  so  much — 
he  will  incur  the  merciless  chaff  of  his  friends. 
In  the  first  place  let  me  warn  you  that  a  silvery 
brightness  is  no  proof  of  the  fish  being  a  clean  fish. 
On  the  contrary,  a  clean  fish,  though  often  very 
brilliant,  is  not  such  a  dead  white  as  a  good  kelt. 
In  the  water  the  clean  fish  flashes  rather  a  golden 
colour,  the  kelt  a  dead  or  silvery  white.  But  if, 
when  a  fish  is  landed,  a  rosy  pink  flush — a  peach- 
coloured  opalescence — can  be  plainly  seen  along 
the  belly  and  sides,  that  fish  is  a  clean  fish.  But 
then  that  fish  will  be  such  a  good  fish  that  no  doubt 
is  possible  on  the  matter.  He  will  be  short  and 
thick  and  '  as  hard  as  a  board/  The  real  difficulty 
arises  with  spring  fish  that  have  been  a  long  time 
up  from  the  sea  and  have  lost  something  of  their 
condition ;  even  then  they  are  shapely  fish, 
and  that,  after  all,  is  the  very  best  test  of  the 
question  clean  or  kelt.  Thickness  is  the  one 


260    NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  OTHER  POINTS 

thing  that  the  kelt  never  has.  If  a  fish  looks  long 
and  lean,  put  him  back  ;  he  is  a  kelt,  however 
bright  he  may  be  and  however  clean  his  gills. 
But  if  the  gills  of  a  lean  fish  are  infested  with  that 
maggot-like  parasite  (Lerncza  salmonis) ,  then  that 
makes  his  keltship  undeniable ;  the  great  majority 
of  kelts  have  this  horrible  parasite  devouring  the 
fringes  of  their  gills,  or  else  show  the  whitish 
lumps  and  scars  where  they  have  been  at  work. 
But  the  presence  of  this  parasite  is  not  absolute 
proof  that  the  fish  on  which  they  are  found  is 
a  kelt.  I  have  seen  one  or  two,  though  rarely,  on 
the  gills  of  undoubted  and  unquestionable  fresh 
fish. 

A  slack  vent  also  indicates  that  the  owner  is  a 
kelt ;  the  vent  of  a  clean-run  fish  is  hard  and  firm 
and  will  not  protrude,  as  does  the  kelt's,  if  the 
stomach  near  by  is  pressed  in. 

A  really  good  new-run  spring  fish  will  generally 
have  all  the  fins  clean  and  hard,  and  will  show 
no  sore  or  redness  on  the  lower  ray  of  the  tail. 
A  kelt,  on  the  other  hand,  will  generally  (but  not 
always)  show  a  frayed  and  raw  tail,  and  some 
signs  of  scraping  and  redness  along  the  whole 
under  side  of  the  fish.  This  redness  and  fraying 
is  a  bad  sign,  but  not  necessarily  fatal.  A  spring 
fish  that  has  lain  in  the  river  for  some  time  will 
often  show  some  redness  of  the  lower  ray  of  the 
tail  fin,  and  may  show  other  abrasions  and  redness 
along  the  belly. 

Of  the  points  I  have  mentioned  no  one  item  is 


KELTS  261 

decisive,  but  the  accumulation  of  several  almost 
always  makes  it  fairly  clear  what  your  verdict 
ought  to  be  upon  the  question  kelt  or  clean. 
The  signs  of  the  kelt  are  : — 

i.  Gill  maggots. 

z.  Leanness,  or  rather  a  want  of  plumpness, 
and  an  apparently  large  head. 

3.  A  slack  and  easily  protruded  vent. 

4.  Frayed  tail  and  fins. 

5.  A  fishy  smell,  and  scales  coming  off  easily. 

The  characteristics  of  a  spring  fish  are  : — 

1.  Shapely  form,  in  particular  depth  from  back 

to  belly. 

2.  No  fishy  smell. 

3.  Clean  gills. 

4.  A  hard,  firmly  closed  vent. 

5.  Generally  dark  fins,  not  abraded,  or  very 

little  abraded,  by  lying  on  the  river  bottom. 

The  flesh  also  is  harder  and  firmer  than  that  of  the 
kelt,  but  this  point  is  more  easily  noticed  after 
death,  and  you  must  make  up  your  mind  promptly 
whilst  the  question  of  life  or  death  hangs  in  the 
balance.  And  when  you  decide  that  the  fish  is  a 
kelt  you  must  not  merely  take  him  by  the  tail  and 
fling  him  in,  neck  and  crop,  unless  you  have  landed 
him  very  quickly  and  have  got  the  hook  out 
instantly  and  without  holding  him  down.  If  you 
have  played  him  for  long,  and  have  had  to  hold 
him  down  firmly  to  get  out  the  hook  from  his  jaws, 

R  2 


262   NATURAL  HISTORY  AND  OTHER  POINTS 

the  fish  will  be  much  exhausted,  and  if  you  fling 
him  in  carelessly  will  very  probably  turn  over  on 
his  back  and  die.  You  must  slip  him  gently  into 
the  water,  and  if  he  does  not  quickly  swim  off 
you  must  prop  him  upright  in  the  shallows  between 
two  stones  in  a  current  and  with  his  head  up- 
stream, and  there  he  will  slowly  recover  his 
strength.  But  if  a  kelt  has  been  much  exhausted 
you  will  often  find  him  still  lying  there  like  a  log 
a  quarter  or  even  half  an  hour  after  you  have 
left  him.  Then  it  is  as  well  not  to  leave  him  so,  or 
he  may  be  attacked  by  foxes,  otters,  or  herons. 
If  you  walk  up  to  him  he  will  bolt  off  into  deep 
water  and  will  be  safe,  but  if  he  does  not  bolt, 
you  must  leave  him. 

A  salmon,  as  you  know,  has  frequently  got  a 
great  many  black  spots  (or  X  spots,  as  they  are 
called,  from  the  shape  which  they  generally  take) 
along  its  sides,  and  sometimes  it  is  not  very  easy 
for  a  beginner  to  tell  whether  a  fish  is  a  salmon  or 
not.  But  the  spots  afford  one  an  unfailing  guide, 
and  it  is  this  :  on  the  true  salmon,  and,  of  course, 
on  the  grilse,  there  are  no  spots  below  the  medial 
line  except  two  or  three  on  the  gill  cover,  and 
occasionally  one  or  two  close  to  the  gill  cover  and 
just  below  the  line. 


XXVI 

THE   OLD   SALMON   ACTS 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — My  old  master,  F.  W.  Mait- 
land,  the  Downing  Professor  at  Cambridge,  first 
showed  his  brother  scholars  what  masses  of  general 
historical  knowledge  are  to  be  found  in  the  old 
legal  records  of  our  country.  The  salmon  has 
been  held  in  high  honour  for  centuries.  Law- 
givers and  lawyers  have  watched  and  fought 
over  him,  and  in  Scotland,  more  especially,  Acts 
of  Parliament  have  been  many  for  his  protection ; 
and  most  of  these  stood  unrepealed  until  our 
own  days.  There  are,  at  least,  seventeen  acts 
of  the  Scottish  Parliament  before  the  year  1504 
dealing  with  the  safety  of  salmon  and  smolts. 
Let  us  look  at  some  of  these  old  acts,  and  whilst 
we  do  it,  we  shall  not  be  less  worthy  salmon  fishers 
if  we  spend  a  little  time  in  picturing  the  state  of 
the  country  when  those  laws  were  made. 

The  first  Scottish  act  that  I  know  of  is  one  of 
1318,  in  the  reign  of  Robert  I.,  the  victor  of 
Bannockburn — King  Robert  the  Bruce.  It  pro- 
vides that  all  who  have  cruives  or  fisheries,  dams 
or  mills  in  tidal  waters,  shall  allow  the  little  salmon 
or  smolts,  or  fry  of  other  kinds  of  sea  or  fresh- 
water fish  (salmunculi  vel  smolti  seu  fria  alterius 


263 


264  THE  OLD  SALMON  ACTS 

generis  piscium  maris  vel  aqua  dulcis)  to  ascend 
and  descend  by  having  clear  spaces  not  less  than 
'two  thumbs  in  length  and  three  thumbs  in 
breadth/  and,  for  penalty,  provides  that  the 
offender  shall  have  forty  days'  prison,  and  shall 
nevertheless  be  heavily  fined.  And  it  adds : 
*  Et  defendit  Dominus  Rex  ne  presumat  piscari  ad 
salmones,  vel  salmunculos,  temporis  prohibitis, 
super  antiquam  pcenam,'  thus  showing  that  there 
were  still  older  acts  or  ordinances  forbidding 
fishing  at  certain  times. 

Doubtless  other  acts  followed,  but  the  next 
that  I  have  found  are  two  passed  by  a  Parliament 
at  Perth  under  James  i.  of  Scotland  in  the  year 
1424.  The  first  of  these  is  entitled  '  Of  slauchter 
of  salmonde  in  tyme  forbodyne  be  the  law,'  and  the 
other  '  Of  crufis  and  yaris  '  (cruives  and  yairs,  i.e. 
salmon  traps  and  salmon  yards  or  dams).1  Three 
other  acts  of  this  year  are  interesting.  Chapter  n 
(of  the  Record  edition)  is  '  Of  playing  at  the  fut 
ball '  ;  chapter  20,  '  Of  rukis  biggande  in  treis  ' 
(rooks  building  in  trees)  ;  chapter  21,  'Of  mur- 
byrne  '  (moor-burning).  Others  are  against  her- 

1  This  act  of  1424  is  as  follows  : — 

'  Item,  It  is  ordanyt  that  all  crufis  and  yaris  set  in  fresche  watteris, 
quhar  the  see  fillis  and  ebbis,  the  quhilke  destroyis  the  fry  of  all 
fisches,  be  destroyit  and  put  away  for  thre  yeris  to  cum,  not  gayn- 
standand  ony  privileges  or  fredom  geifyn  in  the  contrare,  under  the 
payne  of  IC£.  And  thai  that  has  crufis  in  fresche  watteris  that  thai 
ger  keip  the  lawis  anentis  the  Satterday  slop  (the  Saturday  slap)  and 
suffer  thaime  not  to  stande  in  forbodyne  tyrne  under  the  said  payne. 
And  that  ilk  hek  (heck  =  the  space  between  the  bars)  of  the  foresaidis 
crufis  be  iii  inch  wyde,  as  it  is  requirit  in  the  auld  statutes  maid  of 
befor.' 


OLD  ACTS  265 

etics  and  Lollards  (anentis  heretikis  and  loll- 
ardis),  of  stealers  of  green  wood  and  breakers 
of  orchards,  one  '  Of  stollyn  wode  fundyn  in  uthir 
lordis  landis,'  one  '  Anent  stalkeris  that  slais  deir.' 
Others  are  against  harbourers  of  thieves,  reivers, 
and  rebels,  and  '  Of  wapynschawingis  ' — weapon- 
showings,  four  times  each  year,  says  an  act  of 
1491,  a  constantly  recurring  title  telling  of  the 
care  taken  to  ensure  that  all  men  were  properly 
armed  for  the  defence  of  their  country,  a  salutary 
lesson  to  our  less  manly  days. 

The  first  act  of  the  year  1426  is  one  '  Anent  the 
custom  of  salmondis  and  uthir  fiscfye.'  There  is  one 
regulating  the  price  of  work  made  by  craftsmen, 
and  one  '  Of  the  fee  of  workmen,'  another  '  Anent 
the  sawing  of  quhete  (wheat),  peis  and  benis,'  and 
another  about  the  building  and  repairing  of 
castles  and  manor  places. 

In  1427  comes  an  act  '  Of  crufis  in  watteris  ' 
(cruives),  and  another  '  Anent  wylde  foulis,'  and 
a  few  delightful  others.  Cap.  5,  '  That  baronis 
ger  seik  the  quhelpis  (go  seek  the  whelps)  of  the 
wolfis  and  sla  thame '  ;  cap.  10,  '  That  na  man 
cum  to  courtis  with  gaddering  '  (gathering,  i.e.  with 
a  multitude  of  retainers).  Occasionally  the  re- 
cords go  into  Latin,  but  they  soon  return  to  the 
native  tongue. 

In  1429  cap.  22  is  ' Anent  the  act  of  the  fishing  of 
salmonde.'  Caps.  8,  9,  and  10  are  sumptuary 
laws  :  '  Of  the  array  of  knychtis,  lordis,  and  utheris,' 
1  Of  the  array  of  burgessis  and  their  wyffis,'  and  '  Of 


266  THE  OLD  SALMON  ACTS 

the  array  of  yemen  and  commonis.'  Caps,  n,  12, 
and  14  are  '  Anent  the  maner  of  grathing  (furnish- 
ing) of  gentilmen  and  utheris  for  weir  (war)/  of 
yeomen  for  war,  and  of  burgesses  for  war. 

In  1431  is  an  act  '  Anent  the  selling  or  barteryng 
of  salmonde  out  of  the  realme,'  then  come  acts 
'  Of  the  persute  of  thaim  that  committis  slauchter ' 
(murder),  and  '  Of  the  slaar  fugitive  from  the  law 
and  proclamation  to  be  maid  not  to  resett  (harbour) 
him.' 

In  1436  is  an  act  '  Tuiching  the  selling  of  sal- 
mond  to  Inglis  men.'  Foreign  trade  was  in  the 
air.  Another  act  is  '  Anent  Inglis  clath  and  uthir 
gudis,'  another  '  Of  bying  of  wyne  fra  Flemyngis 
of  the  Dam.'  Other  acts  deal  with  night-revellers, 
with  holding  courts  '  for  juging  of  thevis,'  and 
another  is  about  the  selling  of  thieves  (as  slaves) 
by  lords  of  regality,  sheriffs,  or  barons. 

In  1438  is  an  act  for  arresting  and  taking  surety 
of  rebels  or  '  unrewlful  men,'  harboured  or  holden 
within  castles  or  fortalices.  '  Unruleful  men ' 
is  very  pretty.  In  1449  is  an  act  '  for  the  keping 
of  trewis  (truce)  on  the  bordouris,'  and  another 
'  for  the  away  putting  of  sornaris  (a  sorner  is  one 
who  takes  food  and  lodging  by  force  or  threats), 
fenyet  fulis,  bardis  and  sic  like  rynnaris  aboute.' 
The  poets  of  to-day  would  not  like  to  be  classed 
with  these  vagrants.  The  year  1452  seems  to  have 
been  a  year  of  scarcity.  Parliament  met  in 
August  and  passed  three  acts  :  '  Anent  the  thresch- 
ing  out  of  come/  '  Of  halding  wittail  in  gyrnall ' 


OLD  LAWS  267 

(garner),    '  Of    bying    and    holding    wittail    to    a 
derthe.' 

In  1455  an  act  provides  for  '  Ane  ambaxat  to 
the  pape,'  and  again  in  1485  for  '  an  ambassat  to 
our  haly  fader  the  paip.'  Trouble  was  brewing 
with  England.  Acts  passed  in  October  provide 
for  the  punishment  of  any  giving  warning  of  the 
riding  of  '  ane  host '  into  England,  and  that  none 
pass  into  England  without  leave,  and  that  no 
Englishman  come  into  Scotland  '  withoutyn  con- 
duct or  assoverance '  (safe-conduct  or  sureties), 
then  '  That  na  Scottisman  bring  in  the  realme  ony 
Inglismen  '  ;  and  after  several  warlike  statutes 
comes  one,  '  Thir  saide  statutis  to  be  proclamyt  at 
raidis  maide  in  Inglande.'  Apparently  '  Ing- 
lande '  retaliated,  for  the  last  act  of  1455  is  for 
laying  of  garrisons  upon  the  '  bordours,'  and  in 
1456  we  get  '  Of  the  supple  of  the  bordouris,'  '  Of 
the  defence  of  the  realme,'  and  then  three  '  Of 
cartis  of  weir,'  (  Of  the  sending  to  France,'  and 
'  Of  the  pestilence  and  governance  thereof.' 

In  1457  Parliament  is  very  active.  There  are 
acts  '  Anent  the  slauchter  of  rede  fische  ' — foul 
salmon,  of  course,  for  the  very  next  act  is  '  Anent 
ingynis  that  lot  (let  or  hinder)  the  smoltis  to  pas 
to  the  se.'  Other  acts  are  '  Anent  plantacione  of 
woddis  and  heggis  and  sawing  of  broum  '  ;  '  Anent 
the  sawing  of  quheit  (wheat),  peys  and  benys '  ; 
'  Anent  the  destroying  of  rukis,  crawys,  and  uthir 
foulis  of  reif  '  (of  reiving — theft)  ;  '  For  the  de- 
struccione  of  wolfis' ;  '  Anentis  the  slaaris  of  haris 


268  THE  OLD  SALMON  ACTS 

and  destruction^  of  cunnyngis '  (coneys)  ;  and 
'  That  all  personis  sail  cum  to  courtis  in  sobyr 
and  quiet  maner! 

But  it  was  one  thing  to  pass  laws,  quite  another 
to  have  them  obeyed.  The  last  effort  of  this 
Parliament  is  an  '  Exhortatione  be  the  thre  Estatys 
to  our  Soverane  Lord  tuiching  the  diligent  execusione 
of  thir  actis  and  statutis.' 

In  1446  :  '  That  na  Inglis  man  have  benefice 
within  Scotland '  ;  '  That  na  schip  be  frachtit 
(freighted)  without  a  charter  party  '  ;  '  Licence  to 
merchandis  to  sale  to  the  Rochel  Burdeus,  France 
and  Noroway.' 

Here  is  a  title  that  is  common  :  '  Of  the  mone.' 
In  1467  we  get  'Of  the  cours  of  the  blak  mone.' 
Try  to  guess  it !  You  will  do  it  easily  when  I 
give  you  other  acts  of  1467  :  '  Of  the  cours  of  the 
quhite  Scottis  pennyis,'  '  Of  the  cours  of  the  Inglis 
penny,'  '  Of  the  cours  of  the  mone  of  uthir  realmes, 
and  of  the  blak  pennyis.'  Blak,  or  blac,  mone  is, 
of  course,  copper  money,  as  against  the  white  or 
silver  penny,  and  the  coin  called  '  the  crounite 
grote.'  The  coinage  is  a  source  of  constant 
trouble,  e.g.  in  1485,  '  Anent  the  plakkis  and  half 
plakkis ;  1486,  '  The  crying  doune  of  the  new 
plakkis  '  ;  1491,  '  Anent  them  that  refuse  to  tak 
gold  that  is  crakkit.' 

In  1469  salmon  again  appear  :  Cap.  13,  '  For 
the  multiplication  of  fisch,  salmon  grilses  and 
trowtis.'  In  1478,  '  For  observing  of  the  act  anent 
the  cruvis  sett  in  watteris,'  and  another,  '  Of  the 


THE  BARREL  OF  SALMON      269 

bind  of  salmonde  '  (the  bind  seems  to  have  been 
a  measure,  (?)  a  barrel,  like  the  English  statutory 
barrel  of  salmon  =  42  gallons).  Again  in  1487, 
1488,  1493,  1573,  1584,  1661,  and  1696  are  acts 
'  anent  the  barell  of  salmonde,  the  pakking  and 
mesure  of  the  samyn.' 

In  1481  there  is  more  trouble  with  England. 
In  March  and  April  the  Scots  Parliament  sits, 
and  their  acts  reflect  their  mood.  '  Of  the  break- 
ing of  the  trewis  be  the  revare  (reiver),  Edward 
calland  him  King  of  Ingland'  ;  '  The  maner  of 
redynes  (readiness)  for  resisting  and  aganestanding 
of  the  said  revare  Edward '  ;  cap.  7,  a  grant  of 
600  men  of  war  to  be  laid  in  garrison  on  the 
borders  ;  cap.  8,  of  the  places  that  the  said 
men  of  war  shall  be  laid  in  ;  cap.  9,  '  Of  the 
captanis  of  the  saidis  placis  '  ;  cap.  10,  *  Of  the 
waigis  of  the  capitanys  foresaide '  ;  '  Of  an  am- 
baxat  to  the  King  of  France  for  help  and  supplied 
Then  from  April  1481  until  December  1482  is 
blank.  Inter  arma  silent  leges :  Dec.  2,  1482, 
chapter  i,  '  Of  pece  and  aliance  with  Ingland.' 

But  to  return  to  our  salmon  and  smolts,  cruives 
and  yairs.  Further  acts  follow,  e.g.  1488  (of 
cruffis  and  fisch  dammys),  1489  (cruvis  and  fisch 
yardis),  1503  (slauchter  of  red  fische),  1535  (off 
red  fische,  smoltis  and  slaying  of  salmond  in  for- 
bodyn  tyme,  and  a  second  act  '  off  cruvis  and 
yaris  '),  1563  (cruivis  and  fische  dammys),  1567 
('  anent  blak  fische,  cutting  of  grene  wod  and 
slauchter  of  smoltis '),  1597  (cruvis  and  yairis, 


270  THE  OLD  SALMON  ACTS 

slauchter  of  reid  fische  and  smoltis  be  wandis  or 
utherwyse).  Almost  identical  acts  in  1581,  in 
1594,  and  in  1597  culminate  in  an  act  passed  in 
November  1600,  declaring  '  Slaying  of  salmond  in 
forbiddin  tyme  to  be  ANE  CRYME  OF  THEIFT  in  tyme 
cumming.' 

There  we  will  leave  them,  but  I  cannot  part 
with  these  old  Scottish  acts  without  giving  you 
one  or  two  more  of  their  jewels. 

'  Anent  the  dampnable  opunyeouns  of  heresy  ' 
(1525)  ;  '  Anent  them  that  schutis  with  gunny s  at 
deir  and  wylde  foulis'  (1551) ;  'Anent  the  chesing 
of  sic  ane  personage  as  Robert  Hude,  Lytill  Johne, 
Abbottis  of  Unressonn  or  Quenis  of  Maij '  (1555). 
Poor  Robin  Hood  and  Little  John  were  out  of 
favour  in  these  stern  days.  A  letter  received 
from  Queen  Mary  in  France  is  said  to  be  from 
'  Fontane  Bellew '  (Fontainebleau).  Forestry  is 
encouraged.  '  Anentis  the  planting  of  woddis, 
forrestis,  orchardis  and  parkis  '  (1555).  In  order 
to  detect  stealing,  it  is  enacted  in  1563  '  That 
beif,  muttoun,  veill  and  like  bestiall  be  brocht  to 
mercatis  (markets)  with  hyde,  skin  and  birne.' 
1661,  '  Against  sueareing '  ;  1695,  '  Against  pro- 
phaneness.' 

Here  are  two  acts  with  a  curiously  modern 
sound :  '  Anent  the  makaris  and  upsettaris  of 
plackardes  and  billis  '  (1567)  ;  '  For  instructioun  of 
the  youth  in  musik  '  (1579). 

In  an  act  of  1592  anent  the  common  good  of 
boroughs,  this  glorious  phrase  occurs :  '  nocht- 


THE  ENGLISH  ACTS  271 

withstanding    of    quhatsumevir.'     Even    Scottish 
caution  could  no  further  go. 

THE  OLD  ENGLISH  ACTS 

In  England  we  cannot  show  such  wealth  of 
statutes,  but  in  1225,  in  the  ninth  year  of  King 
Henry  in.,  it  was  provided  that  '  all  weirs  1  from 
henceforth  shall  be  utterly  put  down  by  Thames 
and  Medway  and  through  all  England,  but  only  by 
the  sea  coasts.'  Then  in  the  famous  Statute  of 
Westminster  n.,  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  King 
Edward  i.,  that  is  1285,  is  this  enactment : — 

'  It  is  provided  that  the  waters  of  Humber, 
Owse,2  Trent,  Done,3  Arre,4  Derwent,  Werfe,5 
Nid,  Yore,  Swale,  Tese,  Tine,  Eden,  and  all  other 
waters  wherein  salmons  be  taken,  shall  be  in 
defence  for  taking  salmons  from  the  Nativity 
of  our  Lady  unto  St.  Martin's  Day,  and  that 
likewise  young  salmons  shall  not  be  taken  nor 
destroyed  by  nets,  nor  by  other  engines  at  mill- 
pools  from  the  midst  of  April  unto  the  Nativity 
of  St.  John  Baptist.  And  in  places  where  such 
water  banks  are  there  shall  be  assigned  over- 
seers of  this  statute,  which,  being  sworn,  shall 

1  Weirs  are  Kidelli,  in  the  Latin  version,  and  the  word  'kiddle'  is 
still  used,  meaning  stake  fences  set  in  the  stream  for  taking  salmon, 
the  Scottish  yairs  or  yards.  In  this  English  version  of  the  statute, 
'but'  only  by  the  seashore  means  'save'  only,  etc.  It  is  a  mere 
confirmation  of  section  33  of  the  Great  Charter  of  our  liberties 
(A.D.  1215),  which  said  this  :  Omnes  kydelli  de  cetero  deponantur 
penitus  de  Thamisia  et  de  Medeivaye  et  per  totam  Angliam  nisi  per 
costeram  marts. 

*  Ouse.  3  Don.  4  Aire.  5  Wharfe. 


272  THE  OLD  SALMON  ACTS 

oftentimes  see  and  inquire  of  the  offenders ; 
and  for  the  first  trespass  they  shall  be  punished 
by  burning  of  their  nets  and  engines,  and  for  the 
second  time  they  shall  have  imprisonment  for 
a  quarter  of  a  year  ;  and  for  the  third  trespass 
they  shall  be  imprisoned  a  whole  year ;  and  as 
their  trespass  increaseth  so  shall  the  punishment.' 

Packing  and  barrelling  of  salmon,  as  in  Scotland, 
was  dealt  with  by  statute.  The  22nd  Edward  iv., 
c.  2,  provides  for  the  true  packing  and  gauging 
of  salmons  and  eels  in  butts,  barrels,  and  half- 
barrels,  the  butt  to  contain  84  gallons  and  the 
barrel  42  gallons  '  well  and  truly  packed  '  under 
pain  of  vi.  s.  and  viii.  d.  '  The  salmon  is  to  be 
well  and  truly  packed,  that  is  to  say,  the  great 
salmon  by  itself,  without  meddling  of  any  grills 
or  broken-bellied  salmon  with  the  same,  and  that 
all  small  fish,  called  grills,  should  be  packed  by 
themselves.' 

A  statute  of  n  Hen.  vii.  recites  this  earlier 
act,  and  regulates  the  payment  of  the  overseers 
appointed  to  search  the  barrels,  to  enforce  the 
law  at  the  sum  of  'one  -farthing  per  barrel  and 
no  more.' 


XXVII 
ON   TAKING   A   FISHING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — If  you  wish  to  rent  a  piece 
of  salmon  fishing,  it  behoves  you  to  be  very  wary 
indeed,  or  you  may  find  that  you  have  wasted 
not  only  your  money  but  your  holiday  as  well. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  many  attractive  offers  of 
salmon  fishing  are  nothing  less  than  swindles, 
and  that  rivers  are  let  year  after  year  on  records 
made  in  some  altogether  exceptional  season. 
There  are  records  which  are  carefully  built  up  by 
incessant  prawning  and  worming  throughout  the 
whole  season,  and  there  are  known  prawn  fishers 
who  get  rivers  offered  to  them  at  nominal  rents, 
in  order  that  the  owners  may  obtain  a  record  of 
this  sort.  Even  honest  records  of  catches  made 
by  fly  fishing  may  mislead  you,  unless  you  ascer- 
tain that  the  fish  were  taken  during  the  very 
months  in  which  you  intend  to  fish,  and  that  it 
was  not  in  some  altogether  abnormal  season.  On 
many  British  rivers  the  bulk  of  the  fish  are  taken 
at  the  very  end  of  the  season  ;  on  most  Norwegian 
rivers  at  the  very  beginning,  and  there  is  a  large 
class  of  Scottish  rivers  in  which  fish  are  caught 
freely  in  early  spring,  and  again  in  late  autumn, 
but  in  which  through  the  summer  and  early 

s 


274  ON  TAKING  A  FISHING 

autumn  the  fish  will  not  take  the  smallest  notice 
of  a  fly— or  of  any  bait  or  lure — although  fine 
salmon  are  splashing  about  in  every  pool.  Let 
me  remind  you  of  a  few  points  that  it  is  well  to 
consider  : — 

(1)  Go  and  see  the  water  for  yourself,  or  at 

the  very  least  go  and  see  some  trustable 
man  who  has  fished  it.  A  river  in  which 
salmon  are  actually  to  be  caught  may  yet 
be  a  mere  sluggish  ditch,  fishable  only  in 
a  wind,  and  hardly  worth  fishing  even  then, 
or  maybe  not  wide  enough  to  fish  with 
any  pleasure.  If  you  cannot  see  the  river, 
get  photographs  :  they  may  give  you  some 
information  ;  but  it  is  better  in  all  cases 
to  insist  on  being  put  into  communication 
with  some  one  who  has  fished  the  river 
as  a  tenant. 

(2)  Find  out  how  many  pools  there  are  that  are 

good  salmon  pools,  what  length  of  each 
of  them  is  usually  fished  ;  and  as  to  each 
pool,  whether  it  is  fished  from  the  bank, 
or  by  wading,  or  from  a  boat,  and  if  from 
a  boat,  whether  by  casting  or  by  harling. 

(3)  See  the  actual  fishing  books,  over  at  least 

three  or  four  consecutive  seasons  preceding 
the  proposed  tenancy.  See  how  many 
salmon  are  caught  with  the  fly  each  year 
over  the  very  period  that  you  are  proposing 
to  fish,  and  whether  they  are  distributed 
fairly  regularly  over  that  time,  or  are  got 


GET  RECORDS  275 

chiefly  in  a  few  lucky  periods.  If  the 
former  is  the  case,  you  may  feel  pretty 
safe,  but  if  the  latter,  then  it  probably 
means  that  fish  can  only  be  taken  after 
floods,  and  you  will  be  absolutely  lost  unless 
you  are  lucky  enough  to  get  floods  also. 

Do  not  easily  accept  explanations  that 
there  are  no  regular  records.  For  waters 
that  are  let  there  are  records,  unless  it  is 
known  that  they  could  not  bear  inspection 
if  they  existed.  Unless  you  know  the  man 
who  makes  them,  be  very  shy  of  excuses 
for  poor  records,  such  as  that  the  river 
was  very  little  fished,  or  that  the  anglers 
who  fished  the  water  were  unskilful.  You 
will  almost  always  find  that  your  results 
will  be  much  more  like  the  worst  than  like 
the  best  that  they  show  you.  If  every- 
thing is  not  fully  and  frankly  answered 
to  your  satisfaction  you  should  resolutely 
refuse  to  go  further  with  the  proposal. 
A  bad  salmon  fishing  is  a  most  expensive 
luxury,  and  is  a  daily  and  hourly  dis- 
appointment. You  had  much  better  go 
off  to  Norway  or  to  Ireland  and  get  some 
decent  trouting.  Salmon-fishing  is  almost 
always  let  on  a  rental  based  on  the  best 
takes  of  the  best  years,  and  very  good 
salmon  years  are  few  and  far  between. 
(4)  Find  out  whether  previous  bags  were  made 
by  keepers  or  with  their  assistance.  They 


276  ON  TAKING  A  FISHING 

are  on  the  spot  early  and  late,  and  more 
than  you  can 'ever  hope  to  be.  A  catch 
made  by  strangers  to  the  water  is  much 
more  promising  for  you  than  an  equal 
result  achieved  by  resident  anglers  who 
know  every  mood  of  the  river,  and  almost 
every  stone  of  each  pool  in  it. 

(5)  Ascertain  most  carefully  whether  you  are 

to  have  the  exclusive  right  of  fishing,  and 
over  both  sides  of  all  the  water.  If  you 
are  not  to  get  this,  then  find  out  who 
usually  fishes  any  part  of  it,  which  side 
he  has,  and  whether  he  fishes  fly  only  or 
what  baits  he  uses,  and  to  what  extent 
he  and  his  guests  usually  fish.  Many  a 
good  stretch  of  water  is  rendered  almost 
useless  to  you  by  having  a  persistent 
prawner  constantly  fishing  up  and  down 
the  opposite  bank.  Even  minnow  fishing 
can  be  very  annoying  to  a  neighbour, 
though  I  have  been  guilty  of  that  myself. 
You  can  never  have  the  pleasure  of 
leaving  a  pool  quiet  if  some  one  else  has 
the  right  to  fish  it  when  he  chooses.  And 
find  out  whether  your  vis-h-vis  uses  a  boat 
or  no  upon  your  pools. 

(6)  It  is  just  as  well  to  have  it  made  quite  clear 

beforehand  who  is  to  pay  the  rates  and 
taxes  on  the  fishing  rent — the  rates  often 
come  as  an  unpleasant  surprise  to  the 
fishing  tenant. 


INQUIRE  LOCALLY  277 

(7)  Of  course  such  things  as  accommodation, 
boatmen,  if  needed,  means  of  getting  to  and 
from  the  water,  and  distance  of  available 
shops  for  supplies  must  be  considered ; 
and  they  will  occur  to  any  one. 

If  you  are  going  to  have  a  long  lease  consult 
your  lawyers,  and  see  that  you  have  in  it  the 
right  to  cut,  or  to  require  to  be  cut,  willows,  alders, 
and  other  bushes,  which  may  interfere  with  the 
fishing.  An  alder  or  a  willow  which  is  a  trifle 
whilst  you  can  pass  your  rod  over  it,  may  become 
an  obstacle  of  the  most  annoying  kind  in  a  year 
or  two. 

Other  minor  annoyances  there  are  that  local 
inquiry  may  reveal.  You  can  inquire  as  to  bad 
or  slippery  wading,  muddy  bottoms,  and  frequency 
of  droughts  (always  find  out  whether  the  river 
in  dry  weather  shrinks  so  much  as  to  be  hardly 
worth  fishing  ;  and  when  you  go  to  see  a  river 
inquire  carefully  what  is  its  normal  height).  A 
bull  or  even  a  lot  of  cattle  depastured  beside 
your  best  pools  may  be  a  source  of  intense  annoy- 
ance. Bulls  are  queer-tempered  beasts,  especially 
with  persons  who  fear  them,  and  with  strangers 
strangely  dressed.  However,  if  you  engage  a 
rustic  with  a  stout  cudgel,  he  will  look  after  the 
bull  and  take  care  of  your  tackle  on  the  bank 
at  the  same  time. 


S2 


XXVIII 

A   POSTSCRIPT 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — There  are  a  few  miscellaneous 
hints  that  I  should  like  to  give  you,  though  most 
of  them  are  not  connected  with  salmon  fishing. 

The  first  one,  however,  is,  or  was  so,  for  on  cold 
days  on  getting  home  from  the  river  we  used 
always  to  find  ready  for  us  in  the  fender  a  jug  of 
the  most  excellent  brew  that  I  have  ever  tasted — 
a  hot  mulled  claret,  and  this  is  Falshaw's  receipt 
for  it  :— 

Take  a  shred  of  lemon  rind,  three  cloves  and 
two  egg-cupfuls  of  water,  and  simmer  these 
together  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  add  a  pint  of 
claret  and  warm  until  it  is  nearly  boiling.  Add 
four  to  five  lumps  of  sugar  and,  if  you  wish,  two 
to  three  teaspoonfuls  of  cherry  brandy,  and  serve 
in  a  small  jug  with  claret  glasses. 

It  may  be  worth  while  on  a  fishing  excursion 
to  know  how  to  make  and  bake  decent  bread. 
Mr.  E.  B.  Kennedy,  in  his  delightful  book,  Thirty 
Seasons  in  Scandinavia,  tells  you  how  to  do  it.1 

1  His  receipt  is  this  : — Take  i  Ib.  wholemeal  flour,  rub  into  it  a 
pat  of  butter,  three  or  more  teaspoons  of  Yeatman's  baking  powder 
(or  yeast,  if  you  can  get  it),  add  thin  skimmed  milk  to  make  all  con- 
sistent, mix  quickly,  and  bake  forty  minutes  in  a  quick  oven.  In 
Norway,  as  he  tells  you,  wholemeal  flour  is  sold  as  '  Graham's  hvid 
mei: 

278 


FERRETING  279 

With  a  loaf  of  fresh  bread,  a  lump  of  butter 
(which  can  be  pressed  into  a  hole  cut  in  the  side 
of  the  loaf),  and  either  a  tin  of  sardines  or  a  lump 
of  cheese,  any  keen  fisher  may  in  the  most  out-of- 
the-way  place  have  a  luncheon  fit  for  a  king — 
too  good,  I  think,  for  most  of  them. 

All  boys  love  ferreting.  Now,  I  have  known 
the  ferrets  to  lie  up  in  the  holes,  and  cause  a 
trifling  wait  of  an  hour  or  two  before  they  could 
be  got  out  again  ;  indeed,  most  people  think  that 
ferreting  consists  chiefly  in  waiting  with  frozen 
feet  for  the  ferrets  to  come  out.  Generally  the 
delay  is  caused  by  one  or  more  failures  to  pick 
up  the  active  little  wretches  when  they  come  out 
to  sniff  the  fresh  air  and  to  see,  I  suppose,  whether 
you  have  gone  home,  before  returning  to  worry 
their  rabbit.  Every  ineffectual  grab  made  at  the 
neck  of  a  ferret  makes  it  more  wild  and  more 
wary.  If  you  use  a  bit  of  stout  cord  about 
eighteen  inches  long  you  may  save  yourselves  all 
this  trouble.  Make  a  small  loop  at  the  end  of 
the  string ;  put  a  slip  knot  round  the  ferret's 
neck  ;  draw  it  close  and  then  make  it  fast  and 
'  non-slip '  by  putting  the  loose  end  through  the 
string  collar  that  you  have  thus  made  and  taking 
a  half-hitch.  Then  the  loose  end,  about  a  foot 
long,  is  towed  about  by  the  ferret  as  he  works  the 
holes,  and  when  he  appears  at  the  entrance,  and 
you  come  near  to  pick  him  up,  he  usually  backs 
a  little  way  down  the  hole,  leaving  the  string  now 
lying  in  front  of  him.  You  have  only  to  lay  hold 


280  A  POSTSCRIPT 

of  the  string  and  lift  him  out  at  once.  Not  only 
does  this  save  all  trouble  in  picking  up  your  ferrets, 
but  they  soon  become  very  tame  and  very  easy  to 
handle  when  there  is  no  longer  any  snatching  at 
their  necks  as  they  dodge  back  into  the  hole. 

Another  tip,  now,  to  clean  your  gun  quickly 
and  easily.  Take  the  'jag'  of  your  cleaning  rod, 
or  take  any  other  straight  rod,  and  round  the 
head  of  it  wind  and  tie  some  string  so  as  to  make 
a  small  lump.  Then  keep  three  or  four  bits  of 
oily  flannel  about  four  or  five  inches  square — 
one  always  for  the  first  wipe  through,  one  or  two 
for  a  further  polish,  and  one  well  oiled  for  a  last  rub. 
You  will  only  have  to  place  a  square  of  flannel 
on  the  lump  at  the  end  of  your  rod  and  you  can 
not  only  push  it  through  the  barrel,  but  the  string 
lump  enables  you  to  pull  it  back  again,  and  to  push 
and  pull  as  often  as  you  like.  You  can,  indeed, 
rub  the  barrels  quite  warm  in  this  way,  and  you 
can  clean  a  gun  in  a  couple  of  minutes,  the  same 
set  of  rags  serving  for  dozens  of  cleanings. 

Another  tip  to  destroy  rats — which  are  about 
the  worst  enemies  of  game  eggs  and  chicks — is 
this.  Carry  an  old  jam-pot  or  a  jar  full  of  bisul- 
phide of  carbon,  and,  with  a  stick,  dip  a  lump  of 
rag,  cotton  wool,  or  waste  of  any  sort  into  the 
liquid  and  push  it  as  far  as  you  can  down  each  rat 
hole,  and  at  once  bung  up  the  hole  with  earth. 
Every  rat  will  be  '  scumfished/  Bisulphide  of 
carbon  is  very  evil-smelling  and  very  inflammable, 
so  you  must  keep  it  well  away  from  your  face  and 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  281 

from  any  light,  but  with  ordinary  care  it  is  a 
perfectly  safe  thing  to  handle.  Of  course  it  will 
do  only  for  rat  holes  in  the  open,  in  banks  or 
hedges,  and  so  on  ;  in  buildings  the  fumes  are  not 
in  a  sufficiently  confined  space  to  stifle  the  rats, 
even  if  you  don't  mind  killing  them  there.  And  I 
need  hardly  add  that  rabbits  in  your  young  planta- 
tions can  be  exterminated  in  the  same  way. 

To  taint  out  rabbits  from  their  burrows  for 
shooting  days,  a  certain  stinking  oil,  sold  under  the 
names  of  '  oil  of  hartshorn/  '  Dippel's  oil/  '  animal 
oil/  or  '  foxes  oil/  is  far  the  best  thing  to  use,  and 
there  is  no  need  to  buy  the  same  thing  under  a 
fancy  name  and  at  a  fancy  price  to  do  the  same 
work. 

Also  this  oil  painted  on  the  stems  of  your 
young  trees,  or  put  on  bits  of  rough  string  or 
sacking  tied  round  the  trees,  will  prevent  rabbits 
from  barking  those  trees  for  a  whole  winter. 


XXIX 

SOME  BOOKS   ON   FISHING 

MY  DEAR  BOYS, — As  I  have  said,  books  on  angling 
are  almost  innumerable.  Walton's  book,  pub- 
lished in  1653,  is  still  the  freshest  and  the  most 
delightful  of  them  all.  But  what  he  wrote  about 
was  chiefly  bait  fishing,  and  nothing  that  he  says 
will  help  you  at  all  in  fishing  for  salmon  or  trout. 
But  you  must  read  him,  though  his  book  appeals 
less  strongly  to  the  keenness  of  boyhood  than  it 
does  to  older  fishers,  to  those  who  are  willing  not 
to  hurry,  who  can  lay  down  their  rod  on  a  May 
morning  the  better  to  feel  the  mere  pleasure  of  being 
alive,  and  who  can  enjoy  to  the  full  the  temper 
of  a  writer  '  whose  ways  are  ways  of  pleasantness 
and  all  his  paths  are  peace/  One,  Colonel  Venables, 
who,  in  1662,  wrote  a  book  called  The  Experienced 
Angler,  knew  a  great  deal  about  fly  fishing  for 
both  trout  and  salmon,  and  Charles  Cotton, 
Walton's  friend,  who  wrote  the  latter  part  of  the 
Complete  Angler,  was  a  real  trout  fisher  in  the 
sense  we  now  understand  fly  fishing,  and  he  was  a 
scholar,  who  could  write,  too,  about  other  things 
than  fishing.  What  do  you  think  of  these  few 
lines  from  some  of  his  verses,  as  a  picture  of  the 


ANGLING  BOOKS  283 

long  shadows  of  the  setting  sun  on  his  Derbyshire 
hills  ?— 

*  A  very  little,  little  flock 
Shades  thrice  the  ground  that  it  would  stock, 
Whilst  the  small  stripling  following  them 
Appears  a  mighty  Polypheme.' 

But  the  number  of  good  modern  books  upon  fishing 
is  great,  and  I  can  only  tell  you  of  a  few  of  them. 
Of  Scrope's  book,  Days  and  Nights  of  Salmon 
Fishing,  I  have  already  spoken.  It  tells  you  of 
the  lawless  days  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  before  the  present  Salmon  Acts,  when 
fishers  were  few  and  fishing  cheap,  and  when  you 
fished  fairly  in  good  water  and  poached  foully 
with  torch  and  spear,  when  the  river  fell  and  the 
fish  would  not  take  the  fly  to  your  satisfaction. 
Henderson's  book,  My  Life  as  an  Angler,  published 
in  1879,  is  a  most  interesting  account  of  Tweedside 
salmon  fishing  and  of  north-country  angling 
generally,  and  to  you,  my  boys,  I  would  commend 
what  is  said  about  your  great-grandfather  at 
page  22,  and  also  the  absolutely  convincing  and 
detailed  account  of  the  extraordinary  increase  of 
heavy  fish  in  the  Tweed  which  followed  the 
passing  of  the  Acts  which  protected  the  kelts 
from  capture.  The  author  was  one  of  a  party  of 
Durham  anglers  who  fished  the  Tweed  for  about 
thirty  years,  from  1840  onwards,  and  two  of  the 
best-known  salmon  flies  took  their  names  from 
them,  the  Silver  Wilkinson  and  the  Durham 
Ranger.  At  page  164  also  he  tells  you  how  to 


284  SOME  BOOKS  ON  FISHING 

cook  a  trout  by  wrapping  it  in  five  or  six  folds 
of  wet  paper  and  thrusting  it  amongst  the  ashes 
of  a  wood  fire. 

Another  really  good  book  is  Stoddart's  Angler's 
Companion  to  the  Rivers  and  Lochs  of  Scotland 
(1847)  •  Stoddart's  book  expresses,  and  to  my  mind 
perfectly,  the  very  best  practice  of  north-country 
fishing,  though  he  devotes  more  attention  to  trout 
than  to  salmon.  It  is  a  delightful  book,  though 
marred  by  his  savage  and  insolent  attacks  on  Shaw 
of  Drumlanrig,  the  true  pioneer  of  all  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  life-history  of  the  salmon. 
Another  book  that  you  should  most  certainly  read 
is  The  Angler  and  the  Loop  Rod,  a  book  written 
in  1885  by  an  old  Scottish  cobbler  named  David 
Webster,  who  every  summer  used  to  fish  the  Clyde 
and  the  Tweed  for  his  living,  and  in  the  pages  of 
whose  book  there  is  more  sound,  practical  advice 
for  beginners  than  in  any  other  book  that  I  know. 
But  the  larger  part  of  his  book  also  is  devoted 
to  trout  fishing. 

Amongst  the  very  recent  books  I  will  pick  out 
only  two  or  three.  E.  B.  Kennedy's  Thirty 
Seasons  in  Scandinavia ;  Mr.  Gathorne-Hardy's 
little  book  on  Salmon  in  the  '  Fur,  Feather,  and 
Fin  '  series  of  sporting  books,  and  Sir  Edward 
Grey's  book  on  Fly  Fishing.  Each  of  them  will 
give  you  much  pleasure,  but  of  the  last  I  cannot 
help  saying  that  it  is  the  very  best  book  without 
any  exception  whatever  upon  fishing  as  practised 
now.  But  still  the  book  is  a  very  short  one,  and 


FAREWELL  285 

the  author  has  spared  only  about  forty  pages  to 
salmon  fishing. 

These  letters  of  yours  are  not  intended  to 
compete  or  to  compare  with  any  of  those  books. 
They  are  intended  to  teach  two  boys  salmon 
fishing  so  far  as  that  may  be  taught  with  a  pen, 
for,  since  we  have  removed  into  the  county  of 
Sussex,  I  may  not  be  able  to  teach  you  with  a  rod. 
Well,  they  are  done,  and  for  the  present,  at  any 
rate,  my  salmon  fishing  is  done,  and,  like  Robert 
Roxby,  the  Northumbrian  fishing  poet,  at  the 
end  of  his  life  describing  what  he  believed  was  to 
be  his  last  day's  trouting  on  his  beloved  North 
Tyne,  I  say : 

'  And  now  I  '11  reel  my  tackle  up, 

The  fisher's  craft  resign, 
And  bid  farewell  to  rod  and  reel, 
To  hackle,  hook,  and  line.' 


INDEX 


ALDER  LEAF,  to  remove  glitter 

of  gut,  207. 
Alevins,  appearance  of,  239-40. 

rearing,  241. 
Autumn  fishing,   a  week-end   in 

October,  77-87. 

BELT    round    waders,    wearing, 
194-5. 

swimming  with,  195. 
Best  days,  114-25. 
Best  fish,  150-7. 
Biology  of  salmon  egg,  239. 
Books  on  fishing — 

Calderwood,  254. 

Gathorne- Hardy,  209,  284. 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  284. 

Henderson,  108,  283. 

Hodgson,  35. 

Kennedy,  282,  284. 

Kirkbride,  208. 

Scrope,  61,  283. 

Stoddart,  284. 

Venables,  282. 

Walton  and  Cotton,  282. 

Webster,  David,  103,  284. 

Young,  Andrew,  51. 
Bread,  how  to  make,  278. 
Brogues,  194. 

nails  for,  and  iron  foot,  194. 
Bull-trout,  245,  246. 

CARRYING  SALMON,  in  'frail,'  206. 

in  string  loop,  198. 
Casting,  12. 

the  detail  of,  13. 

286 


Casting  (contd.} — 

secret  of  good  casting,  15. 

casting  against  wind,  17. 

where  to  cast,  17. 

last  cast  of  the  season,  87. 
Celluloid  varnish,  167-8. 
Clean  or  kelt,  259-62. 
Clothing,    socks,    quiet    colours, 

hat,  199. 

Cooking  trout  in  ashes,  284. 
Cramp,  193. 

DISTURBING  FISH,  21. 
EELS  SPAWNING,  253. 

FEATHERS,  fresh,  best  for  flies, 

173- 
Feeding,  salmon,  in  river,  255-7. 

scientific  theories  about,  255. 
Fiddle-string,  loops  of,  on  fly,  167, 

179,  184. 
Flies,  8,  34-39- 

a  select  few,  37. 

the  claret,  64. 

the  white  and  silver,  84. 

big  flies  after  flood,  124  ;  and 

at  evening,  161. 
Floating  fish  home,  121. 
Fly  tying,  166-76. 
Foam,  1 60. 

Forty-pounder,  a,  156. 
Foul  hooked  fish,  117,  147,  203. 
Frail,  to  carry  fish,  206. 

GAFFING,  50. 
Gib,  211,  231. 


INDEX 


287 


Gill-maggots,  260. 
Great-grandfather,  his  notes,  229. 
Gut,  8,  10,  207. 

fine  gut,  32. 

Japanese  gut,  191  n. 

testing,  10. 

old  gut,  64. 

HACKLE,  how  to  wind  and  tie  on, 

171. 

Hatching,  237. 
Holding  rod  '  short,'  23. 
Hold  line,  how  to,  44. 
Home,   Lord,   his    great  day  in 

1795.  124. 

Hooking  fish,   fourteen  consecu- 
tive rises,  25. 

Hooks,  keeping  sharp,  44,  204. 
double,  205. 
eyed,  206. 

whetstone    for    hooks    (called 
carver's  slips),  205. 

JOINTS,  mutton  fat  for,  202. 
to    free    sticking    joints,    the 

Spanish  windlass,  202. 
a  rough   and  ready  vice  for, 
203. 

KELT,  how  to  tell  a,  259-62. 
Knots,  177-91. 

figure  of  eight  knot,  179-82. 

for  gut,  to  metal  eyes,  183. 

salmon  gut  knot,  185-91. 

LAST  day  of  a  season,  145-9. 
Lines,  9,  10,  204. 

light,  32. 

spinning,  trout  lines  for,  93-4. 
Loops  on  line  and  gut,  177,  179. 

of  fiddle-string  on  fly,  167,  179. 
Lost  fish,  49. 

recovering,  67,  71. 
Low  water,  18,  164. 

MAORI  CHIEF  and  BISHOP  SEL 
WYN,  129. 


Maxims,  22,  38. 
Minnow  fishing,  88-105. 

in  big  dark  waters,  90. 

in  frost,  91. 

minnow  tackles,  101-4. 

casting  natural  minnow  on  fly 

rod,  102. 
Minnows,  phantom,  95-7. 

leading,  96. 
Muggy  weather,  bad,  160. 
Mulled  claret,  good,  278. 

NATURAL  HISTORY,  253-63. 
'Necked'  gut,  10,  178. 
Netting  salmon,  137,  235-6. 
Night  fishing,  161. 
Norway  and  the  Norwegians,  128. 

OTTERS,  126,  247-8. 
killing  salmon,  131-3. 
fishing,  133-4. 
catching  an  otter,  135. 

PAIN,  sense  of,  in  fish,  55-62. 
Patience,  3,  76. 
Phantom  minnows,  95-7. 
Piano  wire,  98. 
Playing  fish,  46-50. 
Poachers,  139. 
Pollution,  137. 
Pricked  fish,  38. 

QUIET  RUNS,  163. 

RAIN,  159. 
Redds,  212,  221. 
Reels,  9,  203. 

casting  reels,  92. 

overrunning,  93. 

catching  salmon  without  a  reel, 

251  n. 
Resting,     salmon     resting     on 

bottom,  219. 
Rifle  bullet,  141. 
Rising  water,  159-60,  196. 
Rods,  6,  9,  201. 

not  whippy,  for  beginners,  201. 
spinning  rods,  92., 


288 


INDEX 


Roe,  213. 

SALMON    ACTS,    old     English, 

271. 

Salmon  Acts,  old  Scottish,  262. 
Scales  of  salmon,  rings  on,  254. 
Sea-lice,  257-8. 
Sea-trout,  245. 

a  38  Ib.  sea-trout,  250. 
Seagulls,  143,  248. 
Seals,  137,  247. 

Shaw  of  Drumlanrig,  253,  284. 
Smolts,  229,  243,  254. 
Snow,  69. 
Spawning,  208-29,  233~5- 

little  fighting  or  jealousy,  223, 

226. 
Spots   on    salmon,   few,   if    any, 

below  lateral  line,  262. 
Spring  fishing,  63-76. 
Spring  fish  in  October,  a,  151. 
Striking  the  fish,  40-5. 
Styles  of  fishing,  28. 
Sudden  floods,  159,  196. 
Sulking,  47,  57,  58. 
Sunshine,  158-9. 
Swimming  in  waders,  195. 
Swirling  pools,  18. 


TACKLE  found  on  fish,  49,  61. 

ancient  tackle,  251. 
Taking  a  fishing,  273-8. 
Taut  line,  in. 

Testing,  the  gut,  10  ;  the  line,  94. 
Tinsel,  169. 

winding  for  body  of  fly,  170. 

VARNISH,  celluloid,  167. 

for  flies,  168-9. 

Vulcanising    acid    for    mending 
waders,  197. 

WADERS,  care  in   turning   and 
drying,  198. 

repairing,  197. 
Wading  too  near  the  fish,  21. 

without  waders,  192. 

in  swift  or  rising  water,  195-6. 
Wasps,  salmon  taking,  59. 
Where  to  fish  in  various  states  of 

water,  164-5. 
Winging  flies,  172-3. 
Wire;  piano  wire,  98-100;  lead 

wire,  96. 
Worming,  105. 

salmon  swallowing  worms,  107. 
Wounded  fish,  83,  137,  157. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  CONSTABLE,  Printers  tc  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


000  049  045 


